


Not the Fall that Kills You

by Ranowa



Series: I'm coming home, John. -SH [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Asexual Sherlock Holmes, BAMF Sherlock Holmes, M/M, PTSD Sherlock, Past Substance Abuse, Past Torture, Post-Reichenbach, Recovery, Sherlock is a Mess, Sherlock's Violin, john is having a rough time too but let's have a supportive!john instead of asshole john, no John/Mary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-12-07 10:03:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Sherlock's been falling ever since he stepped off Bart's roof two years ago. Now, he's back home, but as it turns out, he's still not ready to land.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, a big, BIG thank you to everyone who's read and commented so far. It means the world to me, and I definitely wouldn't have written this far in this series without your support <3
> 
> Now, I know there's plenty of "Sherlock comes home a wreck" fics, but a lot of them boil it down to Serbia alone. The writing of Just a Text Away gave me a far more concrete picture of Sherlock's two years away than I'd had before, and that combined with my saltiness at canon for not allowing Sherlock any emotional ramifications from the hiatus, a PTSD Sherlock started taking form.
> 
> Now, I set him loose on you, dear reader.

Sherlock walks.

It's been two years, since he's been in London. Long enough that he must re-acquaint himself with his city, re-learn the pavement, re-orient himself in the streets that were once his home. He couldn't- not at first. Not with his return still a kept a borderline state secret, and then the paparazzi stalking Baker Street, his hobbled leg and John stealing his ability to duck out a window and sneak down a back alley. But now the turmoil has passed, so now-

He walks.

He limps, because his leg is still casted, knee to foot, and he's done his research on the procedure they'd done to him: cast or not, it is not strong enough now to take his weight. So Sherlock limps, crutching around each corner and every crosswalk, and he limps until his shoulders burn and his back aches, and he limps.

It's probably not safe, to wonder about London in the middle of the night, limping on crutches to beacon his handicap to the entire rest of the world. He knows the statistics, of course, he's not an idiot. The physically invalided are much more likely to be assaulted than the average, and a pair of crutches at two in the morning is really just asking for it.

Sherlock is not worried.

He's armed.

He's always armed.

He walks.

He deletes the pain.

He walks until he's too irritated to ignore it any longer, and then, he gets out his phone.

I'm revoking your power of attorney. -SH

It is 3:37 AM. The response comes so quickly that Sherlock suspects there's a fire being put out around the world by one especially pretentious umbrella.

I offer my sincerest apologies, brother mine, for allowing you to be properly treated by the best surgical team money could buy. -MH

I have also not been your power of attorney in three years. Was that meant to be a joke? -MH

And yet they still put me under the knife with YOUR signature. I should sue. -SH

Your shenanigans are even less amusing at three in the morning than during business hours. Get off the streets, and go home. -MH

It is clearly a dismissal.

Sherlock scowls.

His phone slips back into his pocket, vanishing into the suit that had once upon a time fit him like a glove. He scratches at the cuff, now- scratches and scratches and scratches, nail itching at a seam in a sleeve that's too loose until a loose thread is torn free.

He keeps on walking.

He's back home just before John wakes up, timed just so, and changed into his pajamas and dressing gown just three seconds before John pokes into the kitchen with tentative steps, and an even more tentative smile.

"Tea?" John asks, and Sherlock has died for that smile. "Sleep well?"

"Like a baby," Sherlock says.

* * *

They go to NSY for the first time, and it's like fresh air breathed into his lungs and the cobwebs shaken free from a whole wing in his mind palace with the curtains pulled back to let the sun shine.

There's a new paint job, and two new officers. One of them is young, green, new; fresh out of school, still lives with his mother and hates it, and has recently adopted an orange tabby kitten that hates him. The other, Sherlock knows, was transferred in to replace the officer that Mycroft had made disappear two years ago.

Moriarty's payroll.

Sherlock doesn't like new people, and he doesn't like new paint.

But Lestrade takes one look, and beams so brightly that Sherlock feels rather bowled over by a punch to the face. He shakes his hand and looks like he wants to hug him again and is smiling so hard, and he exclaims, "Good to see you again, lads," and two years are forgiven in that smile.

Sherlock died for that smile, too, if he really thinks about it. He's killed and died for these people, and now here he is, John at his side and Lestrade shaking his hand, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do.

"I don't like new paint," he says.

Lestrade blinks.

And now, Sherlock's being hugged after all.

"Jesus-" The inspector throws his head back, laughing, but it's heavy, somehow, breaking and cracking with emotion, and he's being hugged so tightly that Sherlock grits his teeth and sucks in a breath and it _hurts. _"God _damn _it I've missed you, Sherlock Holmes," and he's still laughing.

Sherlock doesn't understand what's funny. But, he supposes the proper thing to do is just to smile.

Lestrade laughs, and Sherlock fakes a smile, and the way John is looking at him makes him feel about two feet tall.

"Is your back all right?" he presses, voice low and hushed, the very instant they get a moment alone. He comes for Sherlock under a veneer of professional concern, hand venturing out, and he looks like he's about to tell Sherlock to take a deep breath and hold it in so John can listen to his lungs. "That looked-"

"I'm _fine, _John," he snips back, and, lifting his chin, stalks on after Lestrade to his offie. All with as much dramatic flair as he can muster.

* * *

Sherlock isn't allowed on a crime scene until the paperwork goes through.

Or, that's what Lestrade says, but Sherlock knows it's Mycroft's invisible hand at work, and quite possibly, the concern in John's eyes, whenever Sherlock moved too stiffly or limped too heavily or smiled too brightly. It has been decided, then, utterly without Sherlock's input: there will be no crime scenes until he has healed. His consolation prize is a box of cold case files, and Chinese takeout called for in the cab ride home.

Sherlock doesn't care much, all things considered.

He's bored out of his skull already, and after two years submerged in terrorism and human trafficking and murder, it's going to take a little more adjustment before one of Lestrade's locked room robberies can be worth getting out of bed.

John divides up the takeout, when they're back home, pushing containers of rice tossed with vegetables and soy sauce and spiced teriyaki to Sherlock. He'd ordered extra again, Sherlock noted. Kept ordering extra, serving him extra portions, murmuring to Mrs. Hudson to bring him up some biscuits because he hadn't eaten enough the night before.

Sherlock has eaten more this past week than he's eaten in months. He's not bloody _hungry. _

But John's a doctor, and doctors don't like it when you say _I'm not hungry _despite not yet having met the daily caloric requirements of a male of his height, weight, and physical activity, so Sherlock accepts his dinner that smells revolting and keeps his mouth shut.

Then, it what has become a new pattern, for them, John slides his phone over to him. The conversation of a thousand words is already open, scrolled back upwards at random. It reminds Sherlock of hot sand and the taste of salt.

"Egypt," he says, before John can ask. "I was in Egypt."

"Egypt." The word is soft around the edges, and then, he says it again, as if tasting how it feel. Sstaring at Sherlock, again grasping that instead of rotting in an early grave, he had been there, in Egypt.

Sherlock, for the dozenth time today, gets the feeling he probably should be apologising. Again.

But then, the moment passes and John's relaxed again, across from him, the hard glint in his eyes gone, and despite all his nagging at Sherlock to do it, barely even seems to remember he was supposed to be eating as he leaned forward in earnest interest. "You know, I've always wanted to go there. I'm... guessing you won't be much help if I wanted to ask about sightseeing, though, huh?"

"I did see a pyramid. ...From a distance. From..." Sherlock frowns, briefly, mentally recategorizing his Egypt File, thumbing through the pages he had not already deleted. He is sure there was a pyramid; he's also sure, however, that he'd deleted most of Egypt the second he'd gotten out of that damn country. "...it might've been a pamphlet in a gift shop, actually."

The laugh was sudden and sharp and beautiful, all at once. _"Sherlock," _John chides, with a warm fondness resurrected from the dead, and Sherlock decides it's worth it to smile back.

"So, how was it, then?" John asks after a moment, returning to his own meal at last. "Gift shops aside."

Hm.

Sherlock, again, leafs through his Egypt file. He considers Moriarty's sloppy web, there, the terrorists that he murdered because they would've murdered John. He remembers how Egypt had been the first stop where he'd fallen off the proverbial wagon, embracing the glorious siren call of cocaine because saying no had been such a tedious effort, because John's grief kept vibrating in his pocket and it had been too much. He thinks about waking up his first day in Egypt, and Edward-. Ah. Yes. Edward.

He remembers, _Good morning, Shirley-_

Ah, _yes._

_That _was why he'd deleted all of Egypt the second that he could.

"...Sherlock?" John waits, a moment, his voice gone tense, and the look on his face- Sherlock isn't sure. He doesn't have a proper analogue in his database to compare it with. It's discomforting. "You want to talk about something else?"

Sherlock strides to his feet, turning past John and the food he'd never wanted and the newly wounded look on John's face, and he leaves. He thinks John might've tried to say something, but he deletes that, too, offhand, and shuts his bedroom door shut with a slam.

* * *

He doesn't want to sleep, but it's been three days since he has. That's a rule: going more than three days without sleep is dangerous. He'll cross the threshold for hallucinations, and sensory disturbances, and serious motor coordination problems. He's turned three days without sleep into a trigger, for mind palace Molly to bully him into bed, and he does not _want _to sleep, but he must. He must.

He'd gone seven days without sleep, in Serbia.

Not that that's relevant. Stupid, stupid Sherlock. This is _Egypt, _not Serbia.

* * *

"Don't call me Shirley."

John, from where's been doing a rather transparently bad job at trying not to stare at Sherlock for thirty-two seconds straight, starts.

"I..." He licks his lips. "I- wasn't aware that I had?"

Sherlock shakes his head, once. "You didn't. I am simply stating that, while I am aware that nicknames and pet names are common in what society terms as relationships, I do not wish to be called Shirley."

This statement seems to bother John, for some reason, and he can't imagine why. John has never called any of his previous girlfriends by a special nickname. John has never expressed a desire to refer to him by one. But John is still frowning, watching him with wary, quiet eyes, and it's troubling enough that he can't help himself.

"Problem?"

"What? Oh, no, I- sure thing. I won't call you, um, Shirley." He says the name like it's a foreign word that he's never heard before, mouth quirking, and is quick to offer Sherlock another faint grin. "I wouldn't have anyway, I don't think. It doesn't fit you."

"You've called me Sherl."

_"What?"_ John splutters, yet again. "No, I haven't! I've never-"

"December 31st, 2011. You'd had four drinks of the spiked punch, and were beginning to struggle with two-syllable words. I do believe you were actually attempting to say _Sherlock_, but became incapable of it midway through. Highly embarrassing, mostly for you, though Mrs. Hudson was quite thrilled, for some reason."

John fades faintly pink. He looks at him, for a moment, just looks in that way that Sherlock is still struggling to define; a cross between fond adoration and exasperation. "Git," he murmurs, and something that's too low to catch but sounds suspiciously similar to _eidetic memory, _but he doesn't seem annoyed.

He doesn't seem annoyed, and he doesn't press. He doesn't even ask. He just smiles at Sherlock, and keeps making coffee, and that's that.

Sherlock, settled now into his chair, closes his eyes. He breathes deeply once.

And he talks.

He tells John about Edward Holland, fellow graduate student under Dr. Wharton at Cambridge for the three years it had taken Sherlock to get his masters. He's not sure how much he says aloud, but he talks, anyway. He'd deduced Edward as interested in men in the first ten seconds, just from the way he'd looked at him, sweeping his eyes up and down, the sudden warm flush in his skin as they shook hands. Deduced him as being firmly in denial about it, the moment he'd called him _Shirley. _

He'd adored Sherlock, but only in very certain, specific ways. Only when he'd worn his hair long, only when he'd fondled him from behind, fingers scrunching shirt over the breasts he didn't have. When he was quiet, so his deep voice couldn't give him away. When the motion sensor lights flicked off and he could _pretend. _

Sherlock had known he could be considered conventionally attractive, and had more than once been informed it was in a poncey, feminine way; smooth skin, glossy hair, elegant, lithe lines, just thin enough for a suggestion of curves. Edward had _adored _it. Sherlock had found him thoroughly uninteresting, stupid, and dull, and taken to scheduling his experiments around his just to get some peace and quiet.

He tells John about being stupid, miscalculating to almost die in the Mediterranean, waking up owing his life to Edward. He tells John about Edward stroking his short hair back when he threw up, about the look on his face when he'd seen Sherlock shirtless for the first time. He thinks, though he's not sure, he tells John, about the way Edward had tried to touch him, the day he came back so badly sunburned he needed someone's help to spread the cooling lotion over his back.

Edward had been most thrilled to volunteer.

He's midway through telling him about the cocaine when John starts shifting, again. Mouth twitching, a fist opening then clenching in his seat. He says nothing but his mouth is a thin line, eyes darted away to glare at the door like he might like to break it down.

Sherlock pauses.

"You don't like hearing this."

John huffs and glowers, a little, like an angry, bristling cat. "No. No, I don't." Opens, closes a fist again. "I don't like hearing about you doing drugs, no."

"...you're probably not going to like much of what I have to say, then."

John huffs again and now he looks positively dangerous, like he really might like to punch something. "Wonderful, then," he mutters. "More of this, then. Not that it makes it sound as if you were on a two-year long bloody vacation, binging on cocaine, having the time of your life on the damn beach while I was back here, thinking my best friend had _killed himself _because I couldn't stop him. But I'm sure relieved you were having a good time, at least; good for you, Sherlock-"

The words cut off in a sudden lurch, stumbling in a way that warns Sherlock there was absolutely more, John just hadn't let himself say it. His friend sits there now with clenched fists and a tight jaw, breathing deeply through his nose and glaring downwards to his coffee, as if it had said something to personally offend him. "Sorry," he mutters, though doesn't sound it at all. "Sorry. Know that's not fair." He breathes in deeply again, fist still flexing in a manner that is very close to dangerous.

This John, at least, Sherlock knows. He is and has become intimately familiar with _this _John.

Familiar enough to know that an apology of his own will not be welcome, and that the only other thing that he has to say- that the cocaine really isn't all that big a deal- would not _at all _be a wise choice of action.

Sherlock slips back into silence himself. He stares down to the coffee he'd never wanted, still with the the taste of Egyptian salt on his tongue, and finds that there is nothing for him to say.

The silence stretches into minutes. Sherlock stares at his coffee.

He, too, stares at his coffee.

"I know that you're a man," John says suddenly.

He chokes on his coffee.

"...I applaud your observational skills," Sherlock returns, because he really just has no idea what the hell he's supposed to do with that. "What was it that clued you in?"

"No, I mean-" John gestures a little helplessly, as if in a struggle for words. "I wouldn't ever... want to call you Shirley, or... pretend that you're a woman. I- um. I know that- you're a man, and I'm a man, and-" He coughs, looking distinctly uncomfortable and turning redder by the second. "Yes," he finishes, hands fidgeting in his lap as he tugs his jumper straighter.

Sherlock wonders if he might be having a stroke.

John clears his throat, after a moment; praise the lord, as far as he's concerned- no more of _that, _whatever that had been meant to be. "What happened to him? Edward?"

"Oh, I don't know. Mycroft turned him over to the Egyptian authorities- he annoyed us both." He turns his focus back down towards the depths of his coffee. Who told John to make coffee? _Tedious;_ he's already jittery enough. The world is too clear, too sharp. See, this is why he does not like _sleeping. _"Might be in prison, for drug trafficking, any number of charges- I documented enough to put him away for a decade. Might've ended up dead, too." He glances sideways at John, raising an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

"...well, I was asking because I think I might like to punch him, but- I suppose prison's good, too." And now they're both smiling, a little, but John looks uncomfortable more than anything else, and he stands all too briskly and with a business-like manner that says he'd truly love to put this whole affair to bed. "Breakfast?" he asks, as if it matters- he's already marching towards the kitchen.

Sherlock's not hungry. John keeps making him eat so often he's perpetually nauseous, now, and the sleep from last night isn't helping. But he knows the only right answer is _yes, John._

"Yes, John," he says, and smiles back.

* * *

"You should play your violin."

"...a sudden pronouncement. Any particular reason as to why, or have you merely missed nagging me at three in the morning to stop making such a racket?"

"Well- yes, actually," John says, and with an utterly bewildering little smile that suggests he's not even telling a lie. "Actually, though, I say because you're clearly going stir crazy from not being able to do much of anything, and I'd really like to not come back to the flat and find it blown up, and whether you admit it or not, it always helped you when you were restless." John grins at him even as he tugs his jumper on, all but halfway out the door. "You haven't played in two years, probably? I bet you've missed it."

Sherlock considers.

His fingers itch.

"I don't play sitting down," he snips.

"What? Yes, you do. I've seen you-"

"Well, maybe some things have _changed, _John."

There's another tense silence. John's smile, the way it does so often, these days, flags, like ash in the wind.

"Yeah, I... I guess they have."

John leaves soon after that, looking especially downtrodden. He leaves without saying goodbye_._

* * *

His violin has not been touched in two years.

That's apparent, just from looking at her, still resting in the case. And that's a crime, to be honest. Violins are meant to be _played, _not languish in velvet and velcro- but Mycroft had known better than to touch it, and John appears to have been unable to bear to sell it.

It's a shame that he didn't. Last he'd been playing, Sherlock had gotten interrupted, and hadn't been able to loosen his bow.

Two years ago, it had been a beautiful _J.B. Vuillaume A Paris_ replica which had run him 1900 euro. Now, it's kindling.

His violin is not kindling, will never be kindling; he will burn the flat down before he ever lets someone take a match to her. But the years of disuse are apparent in the instrument just as plainly as they are in the bow. The heat and AC were turned off to the flat, when John moved out, and the years of lack of climate control show; he can smell it, and the strings-

It feels like his ears are bleeding, when he gives them an experimental strum. For a moment, perversely wonders if John's touched her after all, tuning the first two into a tritone just for the express purpose of making him cringe.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, tracing a finger down the neck. "Truly. I am."

He wonders why it's so difficult to say as such to John.

He doesn't even know why he lifts her to try and tune. The pegs haven't been budged in two years, the strings just the same. Sherlock's careful and slow, and he knows _exactly _what he is doing, but it still only takes three attempts at a turn for the G to snap free and whip him in the face.

He sits there for another solid three seconds after, feeling entirely like a right, stupid idiot.

Well, good thing John hadn't been around to see _that._

"Don't worry," he promises, lowering the violin to cradle her in his lap. "We'll get you right sorted, I promise. That's it; easy does it." And John's not around to see that, either, so there's nobody to accuse him of baseless sentimentality for an inanimate object, no less, so he can hug her gently to his stomach and lean his head back and no one is any the wiser.

The state the past two years have left her in, he knows the repair technician and restorer will gently try and ask if he might not want to buy another entirely. To spare him the weeks of painstaking restoration for an instrument that will never be quite the same, to spare Sherlock the weeks of having to wait and the heavy deposit that would best be spent on an entirely new violin, one that wasn't left to rot for two years just like his fake body underground. But no one has to know, so Sherlock will turn him down, and Mycroft will tut knowingly from his office, but who the bloody hell cares what _Mycroft _thinks, anyway.

Acutely, he wants nothing more than that. To hobble out to the store right now, handing over his violin and signing off on the months that he knows it will take, get her out of his hands and out of his sight. The imperfections, the scars, the broken string, the useless bow, the bleeding scrape to the face. Lock it all in a box in the palace and lock that box in the deepest room in the furthest wing, and next time John asks _what's wrong _he'll be able to show him the repair ticket and say _nothing's wrong at all, I'm just out for repairs. Ask again later._

_ _

* * *

He does take her to the restoration technician.

He doesn't tell John.

* * *

There's Chinese takeout again, when John scrolls his phone to April 2013, and, most opportunely, the conversation of the night is decided as _China._

"Ah, yes. Would not recommend. Would not recommend at all. Not as a homeless, hitchhiking vagrant, anyway." He reluctantly accepts a plate, and purposefully strides for the whiskey he keeps next to the acetone. If he's going to get through this, he needs to relax. "Anderson texted me there."

"What- _Anderson?"_

"Oh, yes. He was quite drunk, incoherent, and moronic. Appeared to be mid-nervous breakdown." Sherlock, so-saying, raises his glass in a little mock toast, and reluctantly thumps on back to the table. "I'm afraid I can't satisfy any of your curiosities concerning him, though; I blocked him. He was most tedious."

John snorts. "Yeah, he went a bit-" He flutters a hand, seeming to not want to say it, not want to laugh, and Sherlock can imagine, oh yes, he can.

Unfortunately, Anderson's strange drunk text is just about the only positive memory he has, of China.

The story is three months' long, and bit by bit, frown by frown, Sherlock settles in to tell it.

"I had a bit of a problem, when I first got to China. Heroin," he says, and John's eyes darken just enough for the truth to swell shut in his throat. "I was shot in Afghanistan, and heroin is much cheaper on the black market than legitimate medications, John."

This is not true. Or, rather, it _is _true that he'd been shot, and it is true that heroin is cheaper and easier to get than prescription painkillers, but that's not why he was using. It was never why he was using.

But John looks sufficiently mollified all the same, his mouth twitching almost as if he's been chastised. He doesn't look _happy, _at least, but not about to tense up and glower and make displeased faces the way he might normally.

Sherlock can't imagine what he might look like if he found out that the reason he'd first shot up at all was because of his dammed texts in the first place.

He tells John about slipping into China, realising that the chemical dependency was more of a handicap than a bandaid, now; yet again, always again. He tells John abut letting Moriarty's web catch him under an assumed name, lock him up in a basement in the world's most foolproof detox.

John doesn't look very happy at that, either.

"You don't like when I'm using, and you don't like when I detox." Sherlock smirks, a little, raising an eyebrow at sulky, unhappy, silent John. "It seems I am doomed to make you unhappy, then, because I'm really not sure what other state of being there is."

"That's- no. No, Sherlock, of course I'm glad you detoxed, just..." He chews on his lower lip, for a moment, clearly struggling with what he wants to say. He certainly does not look happy, but when his eyes meet his, again, they are not unkind. "Did you do that a lot? Force a detox, like... like that?"

That's not a question that he thinks it's safe to answer.

"...Sometimes," is what he says, and ensures its on the tails of a careless shrug. It's not as if there are many state of the art rehab programs available for legally dead and penniless MI6 agents/assassins, but he knows snipping that will annoy John, so he doesn't. "In Brazil I did it in reverse order, actually; I got myself arrested for ease of access to the prison, but in prison, the wheels turn that much faster when drugs are involved." He flickers another smile to John, who's again looking particularly pale and unwell. "I actually did see a doctor after that one. You'd have been very proud."

Seen him for a rabies shot, not for the detox. But John doesn't have to know.

He tells John about China. About burning Moriarty's web to the ground, about meeting a contact on the Great Wall, about spending the night in a hostel and helping to groom a poor dog for fleas instead of sleeping himself. At some point, he hears himself slip into third person, again, calmly recounting Agent Lazarus' mission report to an increasingly unsettled John, but by this point, he's just a little too detached to care.

He does this, sometimes. Finds himself speaking, _remembering, _in third person, the black and white records that he'd typed down for MI6 and even now are stored in some secure server under the name _Agent Lazarus. _That's all that's left, of some of the worst days, in those two years. Heavily redacted and pruned files under lock and key in his own palace, only saved at all for MI6 and now they've been there so long he can't delete them.

He can't delete them.

"Wait, really? I never noticed!"

Sherlock starts again. He blinks at John. He has no recollection at all as to what he was talking about. The look on John's face, surprised and earnest and maybe just a little takenaback, does not clarify matters at all, either.

"Yes," he says blankly, and John leans forward a little more.

"Can I see?"

Sherlock has precisely no idea what John is talking about. John is staring at his mouth, strangely, and that should be enough for him to know, but Sherlock is tired and sufficiently warm and slow with whiskey and just doesn't care enough to draw the proper conclusion. He swishes around another mouthful of alcohol, swallowing hard his last bite, and opens his mouth just enough for whatever the hell John is on about.

It clicks a second later, when John's odd, almost professional examination ends, and he taps one finger on his left cheek. "There it is," he says, sitting back satisfactorily. "I never even noticed until now. He did a good job. You know, for a back-alley dentist."

John is referring to the back-alley dentist, of course. The one who pulled the tooth who got infected, the one who'd seemed to rather enjoy pretending he couldn't understand as Sherlock _knew _he mangled a proper, native speaker's dialect, fighting against slippery words with half his mouth in agony. Sherlock has, quite frankly, deleted most of the dreadful experience entirely. He remembers the tooth, because he'd needed it for his medical records, and he remembers the Chinese, as a reminder to practice his south-east Asian accents. There's nothing else. He's not even sure he remembers the name of the city.

Mycroft, for once, won't know. Mycroft lost track of him somewhere around Pakistan. Oh, Sherlock could've gotten in touch, but by his own design, those months had been for him to be completely and utterly alone.

Sherlock finds his place in the mental file again, thumbing through the rest of the pages that are so numerous he wants to feel sick. He rubs a hand over his face, covering his mouth and nose, and forces another breath. Chin up. Steady on. He must do this for John.

John, who stops him, just as Sherlock is about to go on again.

"Can I ask you something?"

This entire affair has been John _asking him things. _Every night, every dinner, every conversation, every text, is John _asking him things._ He has died for him, killed for him, lived for him; John can ask him quite literally anything, now, and Sherlock doubts his power to say no.

Sherlock swallows back the urge to point this out, and nods.

"You do that, a lot." John gestures somewhat vaguely, and it again takes Sherlock a moment to realise he is referring to his hand, pressed loosely over his nose and mouth. "Whenever we get Chinese, you've been doing that." He pauses again. "...It's the smell, isn't it?"

Sherlock sniffs, and, very deliberately, removes his hand from his face. "I beg your pardon?"

But John hardly looks disarmed by the swift reply, instead just grinning softly again, returning to his own chair. "It's not anything to be ashamed of, Sherlock. Olfactory input stimulates memory better than any other kind; I'm sure you know that even better than I do. You were in China for a while, it pretty clearly wasn't that pleasant of a visit..." He trails off and shrugs, and god _bless _him that it comes out lighthearted instead of serious. "It's either that or your order's been giving you food poisoning for weeks now, and you just never bothered to mention it."

Sherlock sniffs a second time. Unpleasant, this. No; _embarrassing. _He takes a deep breath, and recites, "It is an irrational, inappropriate response to an undeserving stimulus, and the best method to decondition this response is via exposure therapy, which-"

"All right, wikipedia," John chuckles, and Sherlock's face burns red. It was the _American Psychological Association, _not bloody _wikipedia._ "Look, it's normal, Sherlock. Just- biological, yeah? It doesn't mean anything's wrong with you. I-" He pauses, once again seeming to fish for the right words. "I first got drunk at sixteen. Hugely embarrassing mess, a right disaster; threw up right in front of Mum _and _my date _and _an entire restaurant. Couldn't smell alcohol for a year after that without feeling nauseous."

Sherlock glowers, and keeps silent.

In fact-

In fact,he should be _angry, _now. This is not an embarrassing first date or mishap in a restaurant. This is not a foolish first drink that turned into one drink too many. It's not an amusing anecdote, it is a month spent getting beaten to a pulp because he _let them do it, _it is months spent barely able to communicate and clinging to life by text, it is his own mind palace betraying him and shutting down.

But he doesn't mind.

John is treating it like it's _normal. _Not defective or weak, not a Big Deal that must be Dealt With. John isn't even dismissing it as a nonsensical Sherlock-Quirk, it is-

This is still normal.

Still, Sherlock finds, token protests are a must. He huffs and straightens and folds his arm, haughty as can be. "Ordinary or no, be that as it may, my mind is not ordinary. I am far more well-practiced in mental self-discipline than _normal people."_

"Yes, you are." John smirks, just a little. "Whatever relevance that has here."

"I-"

"I say we take a break from Chinese, for a while," he announces, steadfast, and whatever's left of the takeout is collected together. No matter, the smell is still revolting and present and _there. _"I won't bug you about it. And next time you suggest Chinese, so long as it's not at this time tomorrow, then I'll assume you're fine with it, and we never have to mention it again."

And, just like that, John lets it lie. Discussion closed, tabled, conversation moved on. There's tea, and Mrs. Hudson's leftover scones, and today is not a sleep day in Sherlock's schedule, but he is sufficiently muddied from the whiskey and when John folds him onto the sofa to watch crap telly, he is too disarmed to mind. There is no more talk of China, no more talk of lost teeth, detoxes, or Moriarty; John's phone is firmly turned off and put away, saved for another day. He winds up curled on his side, glaring at the mind-numbing stupidity of Britain's Got Talent (no, Sherlock surmises, watching one out-of-step dance after another, they most certainly do not), and John's hand is in his hair and his head somehow on his lap.

He should hate it, but he doesn't.

* * *

He wakes up with a blanket warm and snug around his shoulders, soft sunlight illuminating the dust in the air. Alcohol is as alcohol does, lending him a faintly muddled head and a dryness at the eyes and mouth that come from sleeping but not sleeping well.

Sherlock, in that brief moment between dreams and morning, thinks that if every night could be like this, then perhaps he wouldn't mind sleeping so much after all.

* * *

He keeps walking, through the nights.

One night, he's mugged after all.

Sherlock had recognised he was being followed a block back, and known exactly what the stranger wanted to do to him one easy glance over his shoulder after that. He rolls his eyes, and let's the poor sod get close enough to try. Anything else just wouldn't be playing fair.

The moron gets whacked in the face with one of his crutches.

Then, for some astronomically stupid reason, the moron _keeps moving, _and Sherlock rounds on him with a vengeance to prod the knife out of his hand and punch him round the head so hard he's pretty sure a tooth got knocked loose. His nose splatters Sherlock's cheek with hot blood, and now he's ended up on the sidewalk, clutching his face and bleeding and dazed out of his mind.

Sherlock takes the knife for himself, leaves the moron lying there whining like a stuck pig, and keeps walking.

* * *

I'm going to start taking from your trust fund to pay the agents watching you at night. -MH

Love you too, bother dear -SH

I know better than to ask if that was a typo or a mere Freudian slip. -MH

Sherlock, I don't know what you're playing at, but wandering about London at four in the morning, assaulting ne'er-do-wells, and not sleeping, are not your wisest choices. Do not make me interfere. Go home. -MH

Tosser -SH

* * *

He walks, and he walks, and he walks until the sun rises, and then, as usual, he walks back home.

He whispers upstairs, ten minutes before John's alarm is set. He limps soundlessly through the door, combing a hand through his hair, and is half the way back to his room before it clicks.

He whirls.

John glares.

He stares.

John continues to glare.

Uh oh.

The back of Sherlock's neck prickles. He knows better than to joke, at the moment, but with defenses already rising, drawing tightly about him and provoked solid just by that look on John's face, there is very little else for him to say.

"...Good morning."

John's glare is frosty and solid, stock still in his seat. "Seems as if it's been morning for you for quite a while."

John is angry. John is angry, clearly, at him, in the same manner as when Sherlock has done something a bit not good. John knows he was not here this morning. The calculations whir in his head; for him to be angry, for him not to consider it just an early morning, for him to be worried- four hours, at least. _No, _he corrects, analysing the wrinkles in his shirt and the tired bruises about his eyes, _five. _"I'm sorry," he says, because that's what he's supposed to do; John looks angry, because of something he's done, so an apology is mollifying and appropriate. "I had a case- nothing concerning. Nothing that needed-"

"You didn't have a case. Greg's not letting you on crime scenes yet."

"Private client," Sherlock says, shrugging. "Came by a few days ago-"

But this, evidently, was a critical error to make.

John is up on his feet with a bang, advancing on Sherlock, and Sherlock doesn't know where to go or what he's done incorrectly so keeps his mouth shut, but John looks absolutely _furious. _"No, Sherlock," and now, he's shouting, _"No! _There was no case, there was no _private client; _you just vanish in the middle of the night and now you won't even tell me why?!"

Sherlock is thoroughly confused, now, with next to no idea what to say. He's vanished in the night before, and John's never minded, so why-? "Oh," he murmurs, listing back. "This is _Mycroft, _isn't it-"

"No, Sherlock, this is you _lying to me! _You're lying to me again, and you promised! You _promised, _you shit! I told you if this was going to work, you _couldn't _do that, you couldn't lie to me again, and now you haven't even started taking clients yet and you're _ALREADY DOING IT!"_

"I'm-" He stops and stutters once, a pathetic flutter of his tongue. "I wasn't-" Doing anything? Causing trouble? In danger?

He doesn't know the end to that sentence, but John, evidently, has decided that he does, and it's another lie. He stares back at Sherlock with something between heartbreak and rage, neither emotion one that seems to make any sense right now, because Sherlock really wasn't _doing anything, _but John looks just about out of his mind. He pushes away with an angry huff, back turned and shoulders hunched, gasping to himself, trembling, silent.

Then, without so much as one more look back to him, John stalks away, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like _forget it._

The door slams on his exist, and just a few moments later, he hears the door to the street slam, too.

* * *

The silence in the flat becomes too loud not four minutes after John had left it, and not five minutes after, Sherlock is walking again.

He absolutely does not mean to, but somehow, some way, he walks to Bart's.

* * *

Molly becomes the seventh person to hug him for his return, and the first one to touch his back since the stitches have come out.

He throws another deadbolt on the door labeled _Serbia _in his palace, and force himself to hug back.

"I'm so- so _glad_ you're back," she chokes, "I was so worried about you-" and now she's sniffling; oh, no, now she's _crying, _and what's he done wrong now? He hasn't even said anything!

But she pulls herself together after a moment; which, quite frankly, thank _god. _She sniffles once, head pressing to his coat, then steps him back with her hands on his shoulders and sweeping him over with analytical doctor's eyes. "You're okay? You're sure?"

This is, frankly, a stupid question. He's been back for weeks, now; there is no other sensible state for him to be in other than _okay- _but this reminds him of a suddenly gaping hole, a critical flaw in his plans, and he abruptly feels as low-down and awful as Christmas, 2011.

"I apologise," he says, somewhat stiffly. Second time today, but at least this time, he knows what he is apologising _for. _"It- occurs to me that I have been back in London for some time, now, but haven't properly offered my gratitude until now. For-"

"No, no. No," Molly tells him, squeezing his shoulders again. Why do people _do _that, so physically tactile, insistent- "Your brother talked to me, when you first got back. It's okay. I know you've been... dealing with a lot."

Sherlock immediately recommences the planning of Mycroft's murder.

It's also wholly irrelevant- he doesn't know what Mycroft's told her about Serbia, but he can see in her face what she's assumed about it, and she's wrong. He hasn't been lazing about, injured, traumatised, recovering; he is and really have been quite _fine. _But despite his new determination to no longer take Dr. Molly Hooper for granted, developed on the floor of a warehouse mid-March 2013 in miserable China, he's somehow managed to forget about her for six weeks straight, and he just-

He still doesn't really understand, how so much of what he says and does makes the boring, ordinary people that populate his life wince or shy away or, on the worst occasions, cry. And he still doesn't really care at all, if he makes any random, scattered member of those ordinary masses upset.

But after two years of watching John Watson fall apart as a direct result of his inaction and incompetence, Sherlock has made his decision: he is_ done_ with hurting the Important People. He has to be done with it. He can't do this again.

Step 1 of that, google leads him to believe, is apologising for the hurts he has caused. He's done that, just now; Molly tells him it's okay.

Step 2, again, courtesy of google, is thanking them for what they've done for him.

"Thank you very much, Molly Hooper," he intones obediently. She looks startled, so he goes on. "For looking after John. While I was- away." _And, me. Christmas, 2013._

She softens a little, mouth tugging downwards even as her hands at last slip off his shoulders. Good. She looks like she wants to say something again, to brush away the gratitude, but they both know how important what she'd done was- every bit as important as the day she'd helped him survive a fall off a five story roof.

"I was... really worried about him, for a while. I was really worried about both of you, but- he was the only one I was able to do anything for."

This is categorically untrue, on multiple fundamental levels. More than once, Molly Hooper's texts had been the only reason he'd slept. The only reason he'd eaten. She had given him the worst and yet most meaningful Christmas of his life. And that is, ultimately, immaterial; she has saved him by saving John.

But before he can open his mouth to announce this, she goes on again, watching him with those same big, worried eyes and a quivering mouth. "How is he, now, then? Any, um... any better?"

"Oh, he's-"

Sherlock stops. He scowls.

Step 3: no lying.

He sniffs haughtily. What sort of patently ridiculous, thoroughly impossible demand is _that? _People _want_ to be lied to. The truth is so often very unkind.

Nonetheless, he will square his shoulders, shape up, and try. Chin up; all of that.

Just for now.

"...Sherlock?"

"He's- angry. At me." Sherlock sniffs again, choosing instead to focus on the body cracked open for autopsy, right there on the table. Cause of death: heart of attack, most likely one due to poison. Probability suggests the wife, and he knows that's where Lestrade will be looking, but they should be looking at the sister, instead. "For lying, he said."

"Oh, well, that's new." She chuckles quietly and returns to her autopsy, cracking open the ribcage with a near earsplitting _snap. _"Is this a new lie, then? Or any of the hundred others you told him two years ago?"

"What does _that _mean?"

"It's- well, _Sherlock." _Molly smiles weakly to him again, but she seems a little more hesitant, now, a little more wary. "John's probably quite- oversensitive, right now. About you lying to him."

"He's..." And oh, it hits Sherlock with the brilliance of a blazing lightbulb flicked on in the darkest of cellars of his palace. Oh. _Oh. _

Of course! It's so simple, now that he thinks of it- or that Molly's thought of it, most accurately; of course, of course. Obviously. John is not angry at him because of last night, John is angry at him because he associates _Sherlock is Lying _with- two years ago. Yes. No wonder he reacted in such a silly manner to what amounted to so little; it's nothing that Sherlock has done wrong, not this time, it's not _his _fault. He didn't break this.

His newfound little burst of euphoria sickens fades all the way to sour, when he realises that he may not have broken this- but he does still have to try and _fix _it.

He wants to fix it. He's spent two years of his life _fixing _things, deleting _problems _from the world and neatly cauterizing their sins from existence; so often just like in that cracked open body lying just there on Molly's table. That is, in fact, all he has done for two years: _fix things._

He will fix this. He must. There is no other allowed eventuality.

* * *

"I can't sleep," is what he tells John, in the end.

It's not quite a lie. The line between _can't _and _don't, _really- it's indistinct, fuzzy. Sherlock doesn't consider it worthy of being pointed out, though that's perhaps because he knows just what sort of displeased look would be on John's face if he did.

It's not displeased now, in fact. He looks tired and vaguely ill- long day, little sleep, lots of stress, little sleep- but his eyes are crinkled with slow surprise and concern, not disappointment. "You can't..." He rubs at his eyes, seeming to rather want to go to bed himself. The desire to yell at him again doesn't seem all that buried, either. "Are you trying to tell me that you can't sleep, and that's why you weren't in bed last night?"

Ah, John. Wonderful, ordinary, clever John.

Sherlock nods easily once, and finds himself with curious, dubitable award of John sinking down to the nearest seat, burying his face in his hands, and heaving out the longest, most exhausted sigh that Sherlock has ever heard him sigh. He looks like he doesn't know what to say, really, like he's just as frustrated and tired and exasperated as this morning. Most unfortunate. Fascinating, too, but mostly just unfortunate.

Sherlock lingers on his feet, and John just stays down in his chair, head in his hands, for a long time.

"Any particular reason you couldn't just _say that _this morning?"

"I didn't consider it significant-"

"It's not. I don't care. You should've told me anyway." John scrubs a hand through his ruffled hair again; by the looks of it, has been doing that all day long. "Sherlock, you _can not _do this. Not again. I don't bloody _care_ what it is; I _can't _do this if you start lying to me again. That includes lying by omission, that includes being misleading, that includes you being a little shit with word play and thinking you're clever when all you're doing is giving me the wrong impression on purpose."

"I'm... fairly certain those last two are the same thing, J-"

"For _fuck's sake, _Sherlock."

Right. Oversensitive about lying. Right. Mustn't joke. Must remember to thank Molly, again.

He nods to John's back, and lets himself settle back down in his usual chair, irritants of crutches clattered aside and the leg that is still _entirely _Mycroft's fault stretched out, for maximum comfort and minimum fuss. "I apologise for worrying you," he says quietly, which _is, _in fact, true, and at last does seem to have been the right thing to say.

John sighs again, lowering his hands, mollified and softer. He sighs a third time, turning just enough to face him, and he just looks so _tired. _Then, with a business-like clearing of his throat, he wipes it all away, facing Sherlock head on and smoothing the wrinkles of his shirt away like he's wiping away the last twenty-four hours with that gesture alone. "Right, then. Can't sleep. Insomnia, or nightmares?"

"Oh, for _God's sake."_

"I'm a GP, now, Sherlock, this is literally what I do, every day." John grins back, and it's the least strained it's been all conversation. Given the stress and fatigue still creasing around the mouth, the faintest shadow at his eyes, that doesn't really mean much. "So- insomnia or nightmares? The former isn't anything unusual, for you, but if it's getting worse you might want to consider taking something for it."

Oh, Christ, this has become a _doctor's visit. _They're talking about medicating him, now; how did _this_ happen? "I am most certainly not going to resort to chemical intervention for-"

"Oh, don't be such a baby, Sherlock."

"As you already know, I simply require less sleep than ordinary-"

"Chemically speaking, you know _that's _not true-"

"-and isn't it unethical for you to be prescribing me-"

"When the hell have you _ever _cared about _ethics, _Sherlock?" John laughs again, which is just _not at all _what Sherlock wants from this. He does not at all want Dr. Watson, he does not want Baker Street to turn into a GP's office, and least of all, bloody _hell, _does he want interference and medicalization and labelling of what is a perfectly acceptable coping mechanisms.

Is that was this is to be? John labelling him, treating him, _fixing _him. As if he is already not perfectly aware that he is not _normal; _of course he is not, he'd sooner kill himself, and as if he hasn't been told ad nauseam there is something wrong with him- but to hear it from _John?_

John is looking at him a little oddly, now. Already strained smile faded, and that is Sherlock's cue to snap his mouth shut. He's done that quite often, recently, actually. Sherlock has fallen a bit out of practice, in schooling his features to be socially appropriate; certainly is no longer used to doing so for people like John, who know and can actually _read_ him. It's absolutely hateful.

And now, John is watching him closely enough to make him wish for an explosion across the street again, just for the distraction. Just to put a stop to whatever the hell _this _is.

Sherlock does not want to be need to be fixed. Having _John _try to be the one to fix him is entirely another level of intolerable.

"Sorry," John says, finally. And what's all the worse, he actually sounds genuinely contrite. "I guess I shouldn't have assumed- if you don't want me as your doctor, anymore, then that's fine. Of course that's fine-"

But it's _not _fine, because that's not what Sherlock said, is it? John is his doctor. That is how it is. Why on _earth _would he not want that? There is no one else that he'd trust to fix matters when he is seriously ill or injured.

He just does not want John doctoring him when there is nothing _wrong _with him.

But there's not time for him to say this, because John, again, has already moved on.

"-but, can you at least promise me- no more midnight walks, for now? At least until the cast comes off?" He cracks another half-smile, this one, almost teasing. "I'm sure that you're a ninja even on crutches, but it's only for another week. There's no reason to tempt fate, I think?"

Sherlock considers this.

Considers his new, apparent lack of alternatives.

God, sentiment truly is a defect, isn't it?

"I promise," he says, and John beams right back.

* * *

Three days later, John has another all day shift at the clinic.

Sherlock signs into NSY's network under GLESTRADE, texts the poor inspector a reminder to update his password, and finds the latest, most interesting, least annoying crime scene. Then he power-saws his cast off at the kitchen table, bins the dusty, disintegrating chunks in his room, and all but skips out the door.

* * *

John, as predicted, just about has kittens.

It's glorious.

"Oh, Sherlock, there you-..."

"Hello, John. Takeout?"

"You- that's-... I thought your appointment was Monday?"

"Italian? We've been getting Greek quite frequently, lately."

"Sherlock, you _didn't..."_

"Lord, must we do this? The average recovery time for the procedure I had done expires today, which is precisely the reason for why my appointment was scheduled for Monday. I merely-"

"You had to have X-Rays! Your range of motion and muscular strength had to be tested, you might need therapy, you-"

"I've already found the requisite exercises on the internet, and will work through them, if necessary." This much, actually, is true; without Mycroft about to bully him into a hospital, Sherlock had worked himself through minor physical therapy more than once, in his two years abroad. Successfully? Perhaps, perhaps not, but at least he's done it, when excruciatingly necessary. He doesn't like hospitals, never has, but after such extensive experience in working his way through recovery, time and time again, Sherlock knows when something is beyond his ability to treat. This is not.

John, meanwhile, looks like he's about to have kittens for the second time in two minutes, which is really rather why Sherlock didn't mention his plan to him before he sawed the cast off.

"We're keeping that appointment," John huffs at last, in a tone that allows absolutely no argument. "And until you get cleared by the ortho, you're using your crutches. And if not, Sherlock Holmes, I will handcuff you to your bedpost, don't think I won't!"

Sherlock suspects there's a sex joke to be made, there. He also suspects if he makes it, John will wind up handcuffing him to the bedpost out of sheer spite, somewhere before or after- likely before- he dies of shock.

He doesn't make it.

That night, John tempts him with warm leftovers- not interested- and cold whiskey- not necessary. Sherlock knows exactly what it is that John is getting at, but he's just glad that John isn't so angry with him as to ignore him entirely, so he lets him have his way.

He sleeps the night on the sofa again, dozing in stone cold sober John's lap, and very certainly not walking about the city. Because it seems John has done some deducing of his own, and learned if he plies Sherlock with enough depressants it _will _put him to sleep, and if pets his hair then he'll stay that way, and Sherlock will simply disintegrate on the spot if anyone ever realised how much he loved feeling John's fingers in his hair, but he does love it and John knows it and he is helpless to defend against it.

He dreams about Serbia, and Mycroft with a snake's head watching him drown, and John texting him _I hate you _and _goodbye. _He perhaps dreams, but maybe, _maybe, _it's for real, a warm hand rubbing gently at the back of his neck, and a voice that is all together just _sad, _murmuring, "I wish you'd just talk to me."

Sherlock is quite sure this is a dream, because otherwise, it is insensible. He has done very little but talk to John, as of late.

He wakes up alone again- alone but warm, crutches again propped irritatingly by the couch aside a long gone cold cup of tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artist: Akarri


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the comments/kudos!
> 
> Little note; as you can see, I've now bumped up the number of chapters to four, so I can give the final conversation with John the weight it deserves. Chapter 3 is already written, chapter 4 should hopefully be a bit shorter and not take too long. However, I'm also working on a secret santa fic at the moment (and whumptober as well!), and since both of those have deadlines, they unfortunately get priority. 
> 
> Enjoy <3

Sherlock pick up his newly restored violin when he's been home three months and eleven days.

The technician warns him gently that while he's done all that he can, the instrument will never be the same as it once was. And it may be baseless sentiment, but Sherlock accepts her back, all the same. She's been restrung and entirely refurbished, the wood glossy and the fine tuners shining, two brand new bows nestled into the case and even a fresh cake of rosin added in, free of charge.

She may not be in as good condition as she was before. But, in Sherlock's eyes, she is perfect.

And then, he plays.

It's-

Oh. Well. Oh. _Oh._

This is-

Sherlock clenches his jaw and shakes his head vigorously once, so hard it rattles him from the inside out. Then, he re-nestles his chin against his violin, and begins again.

Less than a minute later, he's repeating the process again, even more vehement than before. It's just an inch off, he's sure- if he can fidget just right, adjust his hold a little more, re-discover the sweet spot- _no, not quite..._

But Sherlock, though he might very much like to be, on some days, is not stupid. He knows what's wrong, and it's not that that he's not yet found his bloody sweet spot.

It reminds him, most violently, of the years after graduate school, when he'd lived in crackhouses and back alleys, the time measured not in days but his schedule of get a hit, get a high, get a crash; get a hit, get a high, get a crash. Sherlock had left his violin in Lestrade's care, then, going four years without a practice regimen and months at a time without playing at all.

If he were a stupider man, he'd say it feels just the same.

(It's worse than that. It's so, so much worse than that.)

The bow slips and slides, bouncing when he tries to be forceful and whining with an ear-bleeding _screech _when he tries to be gentle. His left fingers ache in the first five minutes, the callouses melted away, and muscle memory is all but eradicated; his first attempt to leap to third position is so out of tune the bow screeches again. _God,_ it's like he's seven again, letting his teacher mark frets with bunny stickers. Except he's not seven again, because he's playing his favourite piece that he spent months at his best learning and now knows by heart and it sounds like he's beating a cat against the walls instead.

He'd known it would be- not good. He'd known it would take practice. But-

This is _horrible. _This is horrible, no-good, bad-wrong, humiliating, dreadful, _horrible. _Horrible, horrible, horrible. This is horrible, this is horrible, this is-

John is outside.

John is just outside. His key, scraping in the lock.

Sherlock screeches to a halt, on a triple stop cadenza that had been all ear-bleeding screeches in the first place.

When John climbs up the stairs, Sherlock is back at his desk, signed into his email with sore fingers and a heart that will _not _stop pounding.

"Hey, there," John says, lighthearted and bemused. Normal. He lingers in the doorway, just for a moment; then, Sherlock hears him turning towards the kitchen. "What were you up to, just now? An experiment? I could hear the screeching down on the street!"

Sherlock steadfastly pretends not to notice that he's home, and keeps his jaw clenched shut for the next three hours. He scratches his ear, the one that's out of John's sight, and he scratches it until it bleeds.

* * *

That night, he walks.

* * *

Cases, again!

_Cases!_

Sherlock Holmes puts on the hat, and he calls John from a floor away, and he's out the door and feeling more like himself than he has since he stepped off the roof of St. Bart's hospital.

* * *

It has been two years since he's taken on a proper case, with John watching him deduce and helpless detective inspectors lost at sea in the corner and Sally Donovan glaring from the kerb. But it's all semantics, really- his whole entire _life _has been a crime scene since the day he faked his death, so when Sherlock ducks under the crime scene tape to grin, all teeth, at Donovan, who seems barely able to look at him, and nod at Lestrade, who somehow seems uncomfortable and over the moon at once to have him here, it's all normal. He knows what he's doing, here; in fact, he's never forgotten.

So many ways, he seems to have come back wrong, but in this, he is still Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective. _This_ is still _him._

It's a beheading. An actual, honest-to-god beheading, right here in central London. Glorious! "Is it Christmas?!" Sherlock cries, clapping his hands together so hard they sting and heels bouncing him off the ground. Oh, this is his most wonderful high in _months. _"Ah, Giles, I could kiss you."

"Sorry, Sherlock, but I don't kiss anyone who _doesn't know my name!" _Lestrade scowls for a moment, or, at least, he's trying to; he's also doing a historically bad job at it. "I'd also bet a year's salary that you don't kiss anyone."

John's face twitches, like he's very, very amused, and he looks at Sherlock as if they're about to giggle at a crime scene again. And it's still glorious, because it is _normal, _and this is all that Sherlock has ever needed.

The case is properly deduced, filed, and solved in the first minute. Lord, he's on _fire! _And John's looking at him, John's smiling, John thinks he is magnificent, John is _proud, _and Sherlock could just sing.

"All right, Sherlock, that's brilliant, but I'm going to need more than a footprint in mud you're super-duper sure smells like Brixton to. Um, I was going to say arrest, but really, to do _anything at all with_, if you please."

Sherlock huffs, rolling his eyes sky high. The courts will accept fingerprints or DNA as gospel, yet soil analysis is just as indicative and even harder to plant. _Honestly. _"What did you ever do without me, Graham?" he sighs, kneeling back again next to what is left of the body. The head is missing; _god, _what a beautiful quandary. "Has there been a single murder in London proper that's actually been solved, in the last two years?"

"Ah, just the stupid ones."

"They're all stupid."

"Sherlock, behave," John chides, but he looks so chuffed that Sherlock thinks he could continue bickering for all eternity, and it would be all right.

Not now, though. Now is the Work. Focus.

Sherlock breathes in deeply once, narrows his eyes at the body, and _focuses._

"Right, then," he announces, sweeping to his feet. "There are seven different potential courses of action to take from here, to end this with the perpetrator's arrest. Which is significantly more troublesome than just killing him would be, but, of course, if you insist-"

_"Sherlock!"_

"-upon such tedious measures, I-"

He blinks, and this time, he sees.

Lestrade is looking at him as if he's just told a bit-not-good joke. John is not.

John knows better.

Knows him just well enough, to know that he wasn't joking.

Something clicks, and Sherlock's euphoria is swept right around onto his head.

He hadn't been joking.

Sherlock has been to a hundred and one (157, actually) official crime scenes in the past two years. So he has his set pattern of behavior and his head had launched him to follow it, except-

There's no rifle to load. There's no murder to plan. There's no headquarters to arson, files to steal, terrorist cell to infiltrate. He can't kidnap the murderer off the street and handcuff and gag him in a motel room and make him scream a confession to the skies (his fourth plan exactly, in fact). Because he is Sherlock Holmes, private detective, not Agent Lazarus, intelligence agent, and now even if Mycroft bothered to get the charges dropped Lestrade will never, ever let him on a crime scene ever again. And then John would leave, and-

"...Sherlock?"

-and he can _smell _the sharp, acrid burn of the gunpowder-

No. _No. _Sherlock gives his head a vigorous, vehement shake, fingers digging and pulling into his hair as he yanks it back and forth. No, no, no. Incorrect. Must delete those parts, most eradicate from the ground up those learned patterns of behavior. _No! _He smacks a hand to his face, then again, then a third time, physically forcing those incorrect thoughts out of his head. Wrong, wrong, wrong-

"Sherlock, what's the m-"

"Shut up!"

He makes a connection, soon enough. Glimpses a CCTV across the street oriented just so, tells Lestrade to check it at just the right time and compare it with facial recognition of the victim's brother-in-law. It's so slow and covered with red tape he feels like he's moving in molasses, his mind an out of control rocket while his feet are weighed with concrete, and he pointedly doesn't look at John when they leave the scene.

He walks again that night. Walks until his legs hurt, and his head is pounding harder than the stars shine in the sky.

* * *

Sherlock plays his violin, whenever John's out of the flat long enough for it to matter.

Mrs. Hudson's taken to visiting the baker down the street whenever he starts. She never says anything to him about it, not a single word, but he'd have to be a far stupider man than Sherlock Holmes to not remember Mummy conveniently rushing out for a walk every time he'd practiced, the summer he'd started playing, and he'd have to be a far better man than he is to not let his pride be wounded by it.

He's not getting better.

Sherlock plays for hours, or he tries to, tightening his bow as he scatters out sheet music that he's had for a decade, the sheets yellowing with age and scarred with notations he's made since university. He _tries, _because he could before and he wants nothing more than for everything to be the same as it had been before.

And it doesn't work.

Left leg, broken too badly to ever fully, correctly heal, and back, flayed apart in Serbia like an animal being skinned: he can no longer stand that straight, that stiffly, for that long. He simply can not. First it's sore, a stiff muscle in his neck. Then his knee hurts, and it's not proper to shift his weight to his right and he really can't bear to sit down, so he just fidgets and fidgets until the ache is so deep he'll feel it for days. Then there's pain radiating down his back, aching and angry, begging him to drop his arms and lie flat or perhaps just abandon 221B altogether and make himself a new home in a deliciously hot and heavy electric blanket.

Left shoulder, dislocated more times than he's able to count: it can't bear the strain and pressure for more than an hour. If he's lucky.

Right wrist, snapped in Russia, snapped again in Serbia: range of motion, somewhat limited, stamina, greatly reduced. He can't manage proper bow technique for more than ten minutes before it starts to hurt. He can't manage it beyond half an hour at all.

Left fingers, broken again, and again, and _again_: they're no longer strong enough for the runs, and no longer steady enough to play slowly. Vibrato, especially, is _hell._ He starts the piece with a shaky sort of vibrato that's just a bit uneven, just a little too fast, and by page six he's lost control so completely that he can't even try.

He can't play for five minutes without something starting to hurt. By the time he's played for hours, something he'd used to have been able to do without thought, his entire body is reduced to what feels like one defective, overstimulated, misfiring nerve. There's not enough ice packs in the freezer or hot water in the flat to cajole torn muscles and badly healed breaks and repulsive massive scars back to normal.

And yes, he bloody well _knows_ that he's doing it all wrong.

There's physical therapy he can do for his hands, for his fingers, for his back. There's strength exercises and new techniques he could learn, and he even knows the name of a violin instructor he could call to help him with exactly these issues. Even without outside help, he knows he's still doing it all wrong. _This_ is not the way to rebuild stamina and cushions against chronic pain (he has _chronic pain, _now, he's thirty-three and has _chronic pain, _what the _hell)._ He knows it's best to practice in small increments, icing the spots that throb, taking breaks as needed. He knows it's best to start easy and slow, rebuilding his repertoire after two years of a hiatus instead of throwing himself facefirst in at the deepest end.

He knows it's really best to _not _slaughter the strings for hours at a time, the bow screeching until he tastes rosin and he's in so much pain it's all he can do to bleed the notes into something that just clings to recongisable.

Well, he's Sherlock Holmes.

He doesn't do _easy _and _slow._

The past two years have been an abhorrent aberration in every way possible, and to acknowledge them in such a significant way, with such _permanence, _is more than he can take.

He slaughters at his violin until John's cab pulls up on the street, and then he spends twenty minutes coming undone in a shower so hot his skin burns red, and he feels less and less like Sherlock Holmes by the day and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do.

* * *

It's easy, sometimes, for Sherlock to forget that he's not the only one, still grappling for and spectacularly failing to drag himself back to normal.

It's easy, because John is a very, very good doctor, and a very, very good friend. He hides it, because he thinks Sherlock needs him to, which is quite ridiculous, honestly, but he hides it anyway, and it's inexcusable, but Sherlock is self-absorbed and selfish and sometimes, just selfish enough that he doesn't see it.

But John's also spent the past two years half-drunk, drowning in survivor's guilt, and utterly miserable, and he's spent the last several months feeling ignored, betrayed, and lied to. And sometimes, that comes out.

It's another evening over dinner; Mrs. Hudson's leftovers, this time. Sherlock's had a case for the past three days, and that's the only time John lets him get away with not eating, so for once, he's actually relatively hungry. It's actually shaping up to what might miraculously be a pleasant evening.

Or, at least, it is, until Sherlock turns around, and sees the look on John's face.

He's... sad. Yes? Sherlock thinks that he looks- sad. He's looking at the phone, again, and he'd been perfectly happy before this, but now he's staring down at whatever message he's landed on for tonight, and he just looks sad. Shoulders titled down a fraction, mouth set suddenly in a firm line, the light of his eyes dimmed.

So Sherlock takes the phone, and looks at it for himself.

At first, he doesn't quite get it, underneath John's surprised squawk as he reaches for it back. The messages themselves are nothing alarming; John appears sober in them, and even to Sherlock, they do not represent a particularly difficult time (re: Mexico). So it's something else, then? Something else that Sherlock's said or done this evening and didn't notice? He wracks his mind, scowling as he bites to his lower lip. He'd been so sure he _hadn't _made that comment about John needing to shave out loud, but perhaps-

"Um, Sherlock? Before we start, um-" He waves between them with a fork, as if the sheer enormity of it can not possibly have been expressed in words and must be expressed in fork-waving instead."-_this _again, can I ask you something?"

"John, you ask me many things, all the time. I don't see where this odd trend of asking for _permission _has sprung from, but do reconsider it, as it is such a waste of time."

"First of all, it's _good manners, _you git. The same thing that makes milk appear in the fridge despite you never buying it, and the same thing that makes cups of tea appear in your hand despite you never making it once in your life."

"Milk appears because you buy it, John, because you consume it yourself. I hardly think that qualifies as-"

"Oh, shut up," John sighs, but it's with a teasing smile, and the unhappy crinkle at his eyes has worn away, and he even whacks at Sherlock's hand with a fork, so he considers this to be mission success, then.

There's still something not quite right about him, though, when he goes on.

"When you were. Away." He gestures again, gaze not quite looking at Sherlock. "Did you, um... see anyone?"

"...Yes, John. I'm quite sure that I saw many people, in fact."

"No, you _git, _I know you know what I mean, why are you-" John groans, sinking his face back down into his hands. "Did you see anyone like _that, _I mean?"

Which clarifies exactly nothing, or, it would, for _ordinary _people, but Sherlock is not ordinary. All he has to do is stare for a splitsecond before his mind makes the connection, and then, well, he knows.

The text messages that John had landed on for tonight had been about Mary.

John is asking if he has seen anyone, _like Mary._

Ah.

Sherlock must be quiet for too long, because then, John's rushing to say something again, and looking at him in a way that he doesn't all together like; a way that makes him feel small, and fragile. "I don't mean- I'm not going to be jealous or mad, if the answer is yes. Really, I'm only curious. I only thought about it at all because I realised that you knew about Mary, and wondered if there was anyone for... um. Me. To know about."

There's another awkward silence.

Sherlock wonders, for a moment, what precisely John thinks he has been _doing, _the past two years. John has never known him to go on a date before, so why, exactly, does John think he might have apparently gone on one in between assassinations, detoxes, and torture?

But, then, there was a time that John thought that he had been in love with _Irene Adler, _so John's understanding of Sherlock's romantic and sexual endeavors might well come in at about zero, anyway.

"Mary was wonderful," John starts cautiously, and Sherlock, with a start, realises he has been silent for too long again. "She wasn't _you, _of course, and that's why it didn't work, but she... helped me a lot. Which you know, obviously, because I told your phone about it. And I think you'd like her, too. There's- I don't know, something about her. She asked me for coffee, and I only said yes because she seemed like the exact opposite of you, but the more I got to know her the more she reminded me of you." He drums his fingers on the table, the nails click-clacking on the wood, and looks so discomforted that Sherlock thinks he might like to melt into the floor and die. "We still work together. At the clinic, I mean. If you, um... might like to meet her?"

Sherlock, for a bewildering moment, once again, wonders what it must be like to live in such a placid, ill-used, vacantly _stupid _head.

"John," he says, and he has never been more honest in his _life, _"I can not think of _anything _more tedious."

John grins back, and he doesn't seem offended, at least; he grins back and rolls his eyes in a very John-like manner, and he says, "Of course you can't," and for a moment, Sherlock thinks this whole nonsense is over.

And then, he asks it again.

"So... did you, then?"

"Did I what?"

Sherlock knows, but he has to ask the question, somehow, anyway.

"You know. Did you..." He gestures, again, like he's been doing all conversation; substituting an entire world of meaning into just an awkward little fidget of his hand. "With anyone."

A door rattles, in his head.

Something sour invades his throat.

Without a single word, Sherlock strides to his feet, so abruptly his chair screeches along the floor. He knows it will give John the exact wrong impression, that he will believe something that is an utter lie and could not be further from the truth, but he does not care. He does not, does not, _does not _care; there is not a single part of Sherlock that cares as he turns his back, and makes way to hide in his room and slam the door.

And then, for the first time since he has come back, John stops him.

It's just a hand to his wrist, nails caught in the sleeve. That's all it is. Just a calm, non-violent hand on his; there's very little pressure, and no pain at all.

It makes his back feel flayed open raw and bleeding, and John is _mad. _

"No!" John cries,"Sherlock, _no. _You can't keep doing this. You do this all the time, Sherlock, and- and it stops now. Not tonight, Sherlock, not this time!"

"_This?"_

"This!" John cries again, and Sherlock sees before he hears his fist come down with a _bang _on the table and Sherlock will _kill himself _before he flinches. "I say or ask something that you obviously don't like, that's something you don't want to talk about or remember, and that's _fine, _Sherlock. Really, I get it. But instead of handling it you storm off to your room and sulk like I killed your cat and you're all- all in a _mood _for days. You look like you didn't sleep or all and sometimes I hear you having nightmares and- _Christ, _Sherlock, you _maladjusted twat, _you're allowed to not want to talk about something, but enough with just stomping off to sulk about it on your own!"

John is angry at him.

John is yelling at him.

John is touching him.

John is touching.

John really, really needs to stop touching him now.

John's hand stays about his wrist. There are three ways Sherlock can break his arm to get it off, and seven ways Sherlock can subdue him otherwise.

John really, really needs to stop touching him now.

_"Sherlock!" _John shouts again, and the hand leaves his wrist only to turn him about by the shoulders, and now he's being touched twice as much, now, and John is right in his face, small and dangerous and _mad at him. _"Listen to me, Sherlock: if you don't want to talk about it, then you don't have to. You never have to talk about something like this if you don't want to. But you can _say that, _Sherlock, you can tell me I made you uncomfortable, and that way I'll know, and I won't do it again! But running off to hide alone in your room isn't helping you, Sherlock, and you know?" He laughs and it looks bitter and miserable and his voice just _breaks_, hurt as if Sherlock has just slapped him across the face. "You know? I'm _really fucking tired _of you leaving me in the dark."

John needs to stop touching him now.

_"Say _something, you wanker-"

One hand is moving. It lifts from his shoulder; it's straying towards his face.

John really needed to stop touching him, and now, Sherlock will do it for him.

John gasps aloud when the hand meets his wrist, a gasp that turns into an aborted whine of pain as it's twisted behind and pushed up high. He can feel the muscles and tendons of the shoulder straining, screaming in protest and Sherlock knows how it feels with exquisite first hand experience, and he can feel his back straining and his own blood howling in his ears, and all that he knows is that _this must STOP. _

John's stopped touching him, now. John is shoved facefirst into the wall with a hand behind his back and the joint five degrees away from being pushed out of the socket. John's stopped touching him, because now, Sherlock is touching him.

Sherlock is touching him.

Sherlock is _hurting _him.

Sherlock jerks backwards with all the force of an electric shock.

(Once again, exquisite firs hand experience.)

He's hurt John. He's _hurt _John. _He _has hurt _John. _

John tells him he's not to hide in his room. Sherlock's feet drag him away from his room as if magnetized, stumbling him to the armchair, instead, and now his knees are folded to his chest and the world tilts underneath him. It tilts until he's lost what's up and what's down, and his breaths are screeching again, high-pitched and wailing in his ears, and he wants to _die._

There are experiences that Sherlock does not allow himself to think about, in those two years. Or, more rightly, there are experiences that Sherlock tells himself are not allowed, but they still crawl and snatch into his thoughts disastrously more than any other. Serbia is one of those doors, a rusted, iron, bloody storm cellar in the lowest floor of his mind palace.

Tonight, John has knocked on the Venezuela door.

Sherlock is not allowed to think about Venezuela.

"Sherlock?"

John is back. John is angry. He's hurt John, time and time again, and now John is going to hurt him back, and then he's going to leave, because Sherlock is abhorrently rude and arrogant and selfish, but now he is also _fragile _and _unstable _and _violent, _and John loves him because he's remarkable and he can't be remarkable if he is _this._

"...Are you okay, Sherlock?"

...

"I'm okay. Sore, I suppose, but nothing a little ice won't fix."

...

"I'm... not mad, either. I- or, I guess I am, a little, but not about this. I shouldn't have grabbed you like that."

Yes. Yes he _should have. _Because that is what the old John would do before everything went wrong, and if Sherlock's going to lose it every time someone shoves into his personal space he might as well pack himself off to Sussex and retire on a seven percent solution right now.

"...I won't ask you that again, She-"

_"No!"_

This time, it's his fist doing the banging, slammed downwards straight into the solid hardwood of his desk.

Nothing can be off limits. Sherlock- Sherlock is not _allowed _to think about certain things, but John must certainly be allowed to ask about them, because there can't be limits. Sherlock is fine, obviously; he should probably appreciate what John is trying to do, but he's deleted it all, doesn't he see? And he's not _ordinary, _anyway; traumatic memory affects _normal _people, but he's deleted it all away and it wouldn't affect him even if he hadn't. He is not _ordinary, _he is magnificent, remarkable, fascinating, brilliant-

Sherlock's up on his feet and pacing several seconds before he realises that's where he is. John somewhere in his peripherals, staring vaguely and silent, and Sherlock paces until the room is spinning off its axis.

It feels like something is crawling at the insides of his head. Bleeding at the ears, pressing at the backs of his eyes, and it _wants _to come out, but if Sherlock opens his mouth he's now positive that the only coherent thing that'll come out is a scream. It's a nest of hornets broken inside his skull, buzzing, swarming, stinging, _mad._

He paces.

John stares.

He paces.

John stares.

He stops, breathless, pivoting on the spot to stare back. His breathes are still screeching out his chest and he's freezing and shaking, and abruptly Sherlock only knows one thing, and that's if he's forced to stay cooped up in this fucking flat one second longer he _will _die and even his very good doctor of a best friend can't stop it.

Sherlock grabs his coat with a flourish, and his hands are shaking so much he doesn't even bother to take off his dressing gown.

"I'm going out," he grits past clenched teeth, cold, clipped, a snarl.

He doesn't know how to say what he really wants to, after that.

But god motherfucking bless John Watson, because John is up on his feet a second later, jumper folded over his arm, toeing his shoes on right after Sherlock.

* * *

And for the first time, they walk.

It doesn't help translate the buzzing in his head to words at all. But it _does _help stop him from needing to scream or tear something apart, and that, he supposes, is enough of a victory for tonight.

They're two streets away when Sherlock takes a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. John winces, a little, his mouth doing that funny little thing that it does when he's disapproving, but he says nothing, and Sherlock lights the first of what he knows will be many.

The cigarette is only halfway gone, Baker Street .7 miles away, when the ice is to be broken.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to, and I won't assume anything either way, but Sherlock?" The words come out all in a rush, like his tongue is moving just as fast as his feet, trying to keep up with his longer stride, and out of the corner of his eye he sees John looking as if he might want to strangle something. "When you were away, did someone- force you?"

Sherlock spits smoke and the taste of ash. "What?"

"Did someone force you to have sex with them?"

Oh.

Is _that _what John thinks?

Oh, he realises. O_h- _that _is _what John thinks!

Sherlock takes a moment, and supposes he can't even be surprised; based off his reaction, any ordinary-minded human might think the same. It's hysterical, actually; he wants to laugh aloud, but instead, Sherlock thinks about Edward's clumsy fondling, and he thinks about sweaty hands on his bare skin in Venezuela, and he thinks of the man who kissed him and then got his throat cut for the trouble, and he snarls, _"No."_

John sucks in a mighty, gasping heave of a breath. His shoulders hunch and his hands clench, trembling by his sides, breaths still an unsteady pattern of what he thinks just might be relief. He still looks like he wants to punch something.

It's not even true, is the funny thing, though John assuredly would not find that funny at all. Sherlock doesn't _remember _being sexual intercourse occurring, with or without consent, but he did spend an unfortunate amount of time in various captivities, and much of that was drugged senseless or beaten unconscious. There very well might have been someone, somewhere, who did something to him. Sherlock is aware of this.

He also doesn't really care.

After everything that happened in those two years, he's really not about to lose his mind over the unconscious blow job he _might _have given some low-life tosser that he will never remember in the first place.

John is still poignantly relieved by his side, his breaths coming hard, in and out.

If only. If _only _it could be that simple.

Sherlock's smoked another quarter of the cigarette before he, once again, in complete silence, pulls out his phone.

Ah, John. His conductor of light, just as dependable today as he was all the way two years ago. Ah, _John._

Sherlock loves him. He does. He has killed for John, and he has died for John, and he has thrown his life away from him, and he doesn't know how to get it back, and Mycroft was fucking _right, _fuck him, caring _is not an advantage _when it hurts like this, but he loves him. He's not very good at it, he imagines, and John would surely be best off if he didn't, but he does and this is where they are.

John is watching him out of the corner of his eye, now, seeming a bit confused as to just what Sherlock is typing away at so furiously. Some dusty file on Social Interactions in his databank informs him it's probably rude, to be so absorbed by his phone during a Walk with his Significant Other, but Sherlock really just could not care less.

It takes him a few minutes to find an article at all. When he finally does find a link, it takes him another minute to shake off the cobwebs on the file of Central American Spanish to translate it in his head. It's only then, the words still flitting into place over the bloody shadows and the curve of the knife in his head, that he swallows it all back and down, and hands his phone to John.

"...Sherlock?"

"Yes, John."

"This is a news article from Colombia."

"Yes, very astute, John. I applaud your literacy skills."

"...Did I ever accidentally give you the impression that I speak Spanish, or have you just deleted the fact that not everyone is a- an octolingual marvel like you?"

"That's not remotely the right term. It's not even a word." Sherlock sighs despairingly, shoulders slumping in the night. Just _honestly. _"Though I do understand what you think it means, because I know the Latin roots, unlike _some of us." _He snatches his phone back, scowling to himself, and since there is apparently no other choice, starts to read the article aloud.

It's a short article; the only saving grace. Considering how clandestine the operation had been, he's lucky there's an article at all. Three short paragraphs by an high-ranking government official, stating how his daughter had gone missing from school in January of 2013, nowhere to be found, and returned home to them in late October of the same year. Returned home, not by the police, but a tall and pale stranger, who'd disabled the electronic locks to their estate and slipped through a throng of armed security, all in the middle of the night. A tall and pale stranger who, the official noted, spoke _European _Spanish. (Sherlock sniffs, hackles raised and pride wounded, and elides his next _S _like a proper Colombian). A tall and pale stranger who told stories about Venezuela and human trafficking rings, who their daughter called a _good man _that had saved them and carried her all the way home.

A tall and pale stranger who vanished when the official tried to call the police, and who gave them nothing to go off of but the name _John. _

It's a thoroughly roundabout way of saying it all, now that Sherlock really thinks about it.

But John, ordinary, wonderful, clever John, well. He may not be as smart as Sherlock.

But he is smart enough to understand.

"Sherlock, are you..." His voice is low and uncertain, eyes flitting in the damp light of London streetlamps. "Are you saying that was _you?"_

"Obviously," Sherlock hums, and his phone is yanked out of his hands so abruptly he sees it nearly slide right out of John's grip to the ground. "I thought you didn't speak Spanish."

"And I thought you were trying to not be such a git this evening." John's not looking at him, the words absentminded at best as he redirects all his focus to the article, the article that it's apparent he can't read, and Sherlock suddenly has to look away. There's a scratching at the inside of his head, his throat, still, the locked door in his palace crumbling unhinged, and he has to _say something _still and now John knows so now he can talk and it'll be okay.

He talks.

Oh, god, he talks.

It's incoherent, this time. He usually tries to read to John from the carefully selected MI6 file in his head, but he's too wired up to read tonight, and it just comes spilling out with rhyme or reason or sanity. He tells John about rolling into bed with a greasy drug addict, letting him wrap his legs around his waist and scratch his ribs and tell him he's too thin, that he should eat more. He tells John about the filthiest scum alive pulling him to sit in his lap and licking his face like he was an ice cream cone. He tells John about the men who he let grab his cock so he'd be accepted into the human trafficking ring and he tells John about killing them the second he got the chance.

He tells John about the drugs. How at first it was just to blend in, but then he'd never gotten so trashed before, and he just kept doing it because it was all he could do to swallow what was happening around him. He tells John about squirming out from underneath them each and every time before actual intercourse occurred, letting them kiss and fondle and beg and then he throws up in another room because they're all too high to remember. He tells John about the man who bought a child for them to share and something had snapped in Sherlock's head and his throat was slit before he took the time to breathe.

There are a dozen reasons and then some, why Sherlock Is Not Allowed To Think About Venezeula. He doesn't know how to articulate even half of them, not even with his extensive command of the English language and so many others aside.

He says all that he knows how to, and gratitude bleeds like a lanced wound, that John is quiet and lets him.

"I had to buy someone for them, John, that was the final test; I had to buy someone they'd kidnapped off the streets and deliver her back and she nearly _died, _John, I went as fast as I could but I couldn't be fast enough, and when I came to let her go she was screaming-"

He tells John about going out of his mind on MDMA and then going out of his mind on withdrawal. He tells John about executing the entire cell not because he had to, but because he'd _wanted _to, and he'd been fucking high and covered in blood one of the men he'd killed hadn't been Moriarty's at all but just a disgusting piece of scum that made his money selling children. He tells John about finding himself in a room of twelve utterly _terrified _children and he hadn't known what to do.

He tells John about taking the children home himself. About having MI6 and Mycroft on his speed dial but he just couldn't call them, and he'd done it himself instead. He tells John about the screams in his head as he'd done what he thought was the right thing. He tells John about taking the children home one by one until it was just Awilda, whose name is of utterly no consequence to him and never will be but he won't ever delete it, and he tells John about carrying her over the border into Panama overnight and he had to cover her mouth with his hand because she wouldn't quit _screaming. _He tells John about making her cry when he tried to play piano to cheer her up but couldn't because he couldn't play piano and she'd seen him shaking and gotten scared and he'd wanted to bash his brains out against the wall.

He tells John everything and he tells it to him again, half the stories spilling out on repeat because giving them air doesn't stop them from scratching at the inside of his head like he'd thought it would. He says it again and again, and he must be frightening John because he doesn't make any sense even to himself, but his palace is shaken out of control and his restraint is crumbled. Sometimes he opens his mouth and it isn't even Venezuela that comes out at all; sometimes it's Serbia, sometimes it's sensations that he's horrified to admit he doesn't know _where _they happened but he knows that they did and that fact is heart-stoppingly _terrifying. _

He talks until his throat is like sandpaper and the sky is grey, and he's run out of words to say.

And he still can't stop.

"And I... and... and I... and I..."

"Sherlock," John says.

It's the first thing he's said all night, now. A pitiful croak that makes Sherlock's heart lurch in his chest, which is a _stupid _expression but he swears he can physically feel it jump, and he realises then he must've been stammering those words for the past minute and a half.

"Sherlock," John entreats again. He doesn't touch him, but he looks like he dearly might want to. "Sherlock?"

He stumbles once, abruptly dizzy and rasping into the silence. He opens his mouth, bracing a hand against the nearest steady, flat surface, and nothing comes out.

"Sher- okay. Okay. Let's just-" John's hands hover over his, not touching but guiding all the same. "Let's just sit over here for a minute, okay? Catch our breath. Okay, here we go..."

It's not until John says this that Sherlock realises he is, in fact, short of breath. By the tone of his voice, John probably thinks it's emotional turmoil or some other such rubbish; Sherlock is rather convinced it's more to do with his fourth cigarette of the night. He continues smoking, regardless, but does at least allow John to nudge him into sitting down.

The world continues to tilt and race under his feet, and he wants to keep running.

"...across the street. You listening? Sherlock?" John is in front of him, again; when did that happen? "There's a guy across the street, I'm gonna get us some chips, and I'll be right back. Do you promise you'll stay right here until I get back?'

Sherlock does not want chips.

But maybe John doesn't want chips, either. Maybe John wants him to calm down and thinks giving him a minute will help. Maybe it will. Sherlock doesn't know, but he would very much like to calm down, now, and moreover if he can't calm down he at least wants to stop embarrassing himself in front of John.

He nods, dazedly, once.

John watches him closely, his blue eyes wary or perhaps outright alarmed; he knows he's searching for signs of a lie, that he half-believes if he gets up when he turns around Sherlock will be gone. Sherlock hasn't slept in days and feels like he's been running for miles and is trembling with a racing heart on what just _might _have been too much nicotine, even for him. He couldn't put on a convincing facade if he tried.

John leaves, and Sherlock is left panting alone on the bench, shivering in his coat and trying to get his racing breaths back under control.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fucking _shit._

Well, this has been a humiliating travesty of an evening, hasn't it?

John strides back across the street to him, chips in his hands, his face measured and quick with military precision and everything about him tense with worry. He's staring at Sherlock, eyes way in a way that makes it feel like he's expected to break, and that _makes _something clench, right in his stomach.

"I'm fine," he growls. Then he actually hears himself, and has to duck his head into his hands. Every last drag of the cigarettes is audible, right there in the gravelly croak coming from his throat. "I'm fine now, John."

"Eat something, please?"

Sherlock does not want chips. Sherlock, after spending the past hour in this state, is reasonably sure if he chokes down that basket of grease and oil, he _will _find himself throwing up into the gutter.

"Just one?"

"I said no, _Mother," _he snarls, but he holds his hand out, and John hands him one and smiles like Sherlock handed him the sun in return, and he eats the goddamn chip.

When it's gone, John does not hand him another. For that, at least, he can be grateful.

"Sherlock," he says at length, and there's something lurking in his voice that he can't identify. It's there in his face, too. "That's... what- you did. You're..."

"Oh, spit it out, John. it's not as if I'll be offended. High-functioning sociopath, remember?"

"Sher-"

"It's what? Disgusting? Repulsive? Hateful? Believe me, I know." Sherlock digs his fists into his trousers and snarls again, nails clawing a loose thread out of habit and then dragging it until he can feel the seam tighten at his knee. Another pair, ruined. "My first clue should've been when I had to get high just to stomach it. But I think it didn't really settle in until the second week, I-"

"I was going to say amazing, Sherlock."

Sherlock screeches off the tracks and watches his thoughts crash about all over the pavement.

John is staring wonderingly back, as if he can't even believe what he's just heard. It's an expression he hasn't seen on his face in a very long time, one that is reminiscent of the old John, the one who walked with a limp and called him brilliant instead of a cock, but there's flatmate John in there, too, a edge of wariness to his eyes, and the way he shifts closer then to touch his hand is entirely New John. The one who kissed him in Angelo's and still calls him a cock and, for some reason, says he loves him.

Error: lacking proper data for response. Error: shutdown.

"What is-" John shakes his head, hand curling tightly around Sherlock's. "What you did is _amazing, _you moron. You saved their lives."

"I saved _your _life," he growls back. "I didn't do it for _them."_

"No? And taking the survivors home, afterwards? That for Moriarty as well, then?"

He knows what John is trying to do, and it's not going to work. It's _hateful, _and Sherlock wishes he had the strength to tell him so, but there's something still fluttering in his chest like an anxious bird and he can't quite get in enough air to snarl it out. "I couldn't very well just _leave_ them there, John."

"No, I think you could have. You could've called the police, or you could've called Mycroft. But-"

"I did what I did for _myself, _John, don't you see?! I didn't want _Mycroft _to interfere, I didn't want to do it quickly or efficiently or the _right _way, I- _god!" _His fingers dig and claw through his hair, scratching so hard he can feel the dig of nails into his scalp. He presses harder, breathing against the pinpricks of pain, trying to press out the building maelstrom in his head to form it into words in a fight that's doomed from the start.

He hadn't been able to bear it. He'd been standing in a roomful of traumatised children, covered in blood, withdrawal racing through his veins and starving his brain, and the madness that had been building for weeks or likely even months had hit him in the face and he'd been trapped. He'd been so _tired_ of it, existing as barely more than a phantom, with precisely nothing and precisely no one and his only impact on the world reduced to executions, one by one. Lonely was a word for it, perhaps, but not really, not for the oppressive, suffocating, crushing need to suddenly have to be _something _more than that blood-covered nameless assassin, his skin crawling with filth as it would continue to crawl even as he scrubbed it red and raw.

He'd stood there in Venezuela, over a year away from home and without _anything _at all in the world left to him, and-

And he'd just had to hit pause.

He'd needed to exist beyond a black ops shadow. To have a real, tangible, positive impact, proof of his own existence beyond the weight of the rifle in his hands or John's name lighting across his phone. To stamp himself down in Venezuela, no matter how small the gesture, and be able to say _I did this. It was good. It was me. _

He'd needed to have a name, again.

Not to call fucking _Mycroft _and wind up black helicoptered out, sent along to the next branch of the web like a dog called to heel, and the entire sordid affair white-outed out of existence.

Those few weeks, ferrying those children back to their parents, had been the closest thing to a vacation he could've had.

He's not going to say such things to John, of course. He has no idea how to put any of it into words that make sense, and even if he did, there's something sincerely repulsive about sitting here, whining about such nonsense; such sentimental things. That's the second reason he hadn't texted Mycroft. Mycroft would've told him outright _what you are doing is moronic; stop this now. _

Yes, Mycroft, thank you, he _knows _that. Sometimes nobody actually wants to be told what's best from a nagging overprotective busybody of a big brother.

John's sat back on the bench, a little, not drawing away from his side but silent for the moment, seeming to try and find what he wants to say. His hand has returned softly to Sherlock's again, and this time, he's too damn tired to wrench it away.

John hands him another chip. Sherlock doesn't want it. He chews it anyway, and he won't taste Venezuelan rice, he won't taste the heavy-metal tang of the water, and he will _not _taste blood.

_Fine, _he tastes all of it, but he knows it's not real and that's supposed to be what counts.

"All right," John tells him. "So you did it for selfish motives, then." He curls each of his fingers around one of Sherlock's, tracing the knuckles, a rough, badly healed scar on the back of his hand. "I went to Afghanistan because I was an adrenaline junkie, not to save lives, and definitely not to fight terrorists. That doesn't stop at least ten percent of my blog's comments from thanking me for my service every week, and that doesn't stop wankers in Parliament from calling people like me war heroes as they grandstand over how much veteran's benefits I'm entitled to." He breaks off for a moment, offering Sherlock a meager sort of half-smile.

It's not pitying, and that's everything he ever could've asked for.

"You did something amazing, love. Motivations don't change that- and to be quite honest, I never was under the delusion you were anything other than a complete dickhead, so this doesn't change any of that, either." He squeezes his hand, and _fuck him, _but Sherlock somehow has it in him to arrange a proper smile back. "It... probably doesn't feel amazing, I know. Because nothing about that felt amazing or good to experience, it probably felt like shit, and that's how it feels to remember it, too. But I know you're smart enough to dissect the good from the bad and realise that just because what happened was awful doesn't mean _you _are."

..._hm._

An... interesting proposition.

Fascinating, actually.

He doesn't say anything, not yet. He lets his gaze slide away from John's again, landing on a slippery oil puddle instead, a slick of dark that reflects rainbow light in a refraction pattern that reminds him of Afghanistan.

What John says is logical. It's an apt enough analogy, too- why John went to Afghanistan, why Sherlock fell. And he can tell that John is not lying; not just praising him in some foolish attempt to make him feel better.

Perhaps more important than all of that combined, Sherlock doesn't have a defense. He wants to argue, but he opens his mouth and everything he can think of to protest with is barely more than performative, shallow nonsense.

If what John says is logical, and Sherlock can not think of an equally logical defense, then, barring the collection of more data, Sherlock must take John's words as correct.

It doesn't quite feel as good as it should.

But it's something.

"John, do you see what wonderful things you are capable of, when you actually _apply yourself _and put your mind to use? Just how capable you can be, when you try to rustle up some independent thought?"

"Oh?" John smirks, but his eyes are soft, and the hand on his is so, so warm. "You think if I keep it up, I'll start solving cases without you?"

"Well, let's not get carried away..."

With another faint chuckle, John pushes to his feet. He's steady, without the slightest hint of a limp, but his bad shoulder is held a little closer to his side. It's the one that Sherlock twisted, before.

He still doesn't look angry in the slightest as he holds a hand out to Sherlock, once again, with another chip, this time in a clear invitation to come home.

Sherlock narrows his eyes.

"You want to kiss me," he says.

"What-" With a faint flush, John's smile twitches, but at least he has the sense to not deny it. "I suppose so, yes. There's not any point in asking you to turn the deductions off, is there?"

"What did we just say, about you needing to apply yourself more?"

"Right." John sighs, his shoulders falling. There's something soft again, in the way he's looking at Sherlock now, soft and unbearably fond and unbearably sad. It makes him feel like he's pinned under a microscope, and the feeling only gets more acute as John drops to his knees loosely again, crouching down so they are again eye to eye.

"I do want to kiss you." John says. "I want to go back to Baker Street, and I want to kiss you all over. I want to kiss you everywhere those men did and I want to keep doing it until the you run out of storage space in that file and there's only room for me. Since I know you probably already deduced it in the part of my hair or a button on my shirt or something, I also want to do more than that. I want to touch you in every way you didn't let them, in every way that would make you'd let me, and I want to do it every night this week until-"

"Okay."

"You- _what?" _John splutters, rocking backwards on his heels. He stares up at him, takenaback, and there's abruptly something sad about his mouth, now, a way that makes him feel as if he's being _handled, _again. As if he is _fragile._ "I- no, Sherlock. I'm not saying..." you've had a rough night. Tonight isn't-"

"I said, _okay,_" Sherlock says again, and he kisses John to shut him up.

* * *

It does end up happening, though not quite everything that John had said.

John is just slightly tipsy on lack of sleep, the sun coming up by the time they get back to Baker Street, and he hadn't eaten dinner, and his shoulder is clearly hurting him even though he won't say so, and no matter what he says about 'Sherlock' having had a 'rough night', he is clearly the one who's shaken. Sherlock suspects the only reason they end up in his bedroom is because John's is a floor higher and John is too tired to climb the stairs.

John is still on him the second the door shuts. Sherlock, though it's a rather novel experience all the way around, is pretty sure he prefers it like this.

John is too tired to muddle through conversation, so there is no blatantly false declarations of his evidently non-existent heterosexuality, so Sherlock doesn't have to point out _just because you're not gay doesn't mean you're straight, which should already be apparent from the tongue down my throat. _Even better than that, there's no attempt of the reverse, of John fumbling at _him, _saying _I thought you weren't... attracted to... anyone?, _so Sherlock doesn't have to snarl back _I'm not, but you're not manipulating me to do anything I don't want to do, so don't you dare look at me like that anymore._

That much, at least, is true. He is asexual. He is also an adult, and can make his own choices without John Watson second-guessing him because relative sexual inexperience is somehow tantamount to stupidity.

There are still questions.

John stops the second they hit the bed, his hands on his shoulders and the lights too dim for his face to be read. "Are you _sure?_ We don't have to do this tonight, Sherlock. Not if-"

Sherlock, once again, kisses him to make him shut up. He's getting rather good at it, he finds.

The question comes again, several times, to the point of it being tedious. It's clumsy and sleepy but emphatic, John kissing him all over, hauling him into his arms, his trousers wrestled off for a good old-fashioned shagging, and he hugs Sherlock tight enough to drive the breath out of him. He pulls at Sherlock's hair with a tearing urgency, a nail even scratching south of his collar, but Sherlock simply lets him until one of his hands catches at the buttons of his shirt.

"Leave it."

"I- oh. Oh. I-"

"Leave it, John."

"Are you okay?" His hand jerks back as if burned, fingers fluttering over his shirt but not touching anymore. "We can stop-"

"I'm _fine, _John. I am simply requesting that you leave my shirt alone." He tilts his head, piercing him with his sharpest gaze that he knows will cut his defenses out from under him and throw all his imbecilic second-guessing straight out the window. "Problem?"

"That's..."

It takes a moment, then. Just a moment for John's face to fall, the anxious fluttering in his hands stilled as if he's just doused them in ice.

And Sherlock's not an idiot, really, he doesn't understand why people keep thinking they can fool him. So he knows _exactly _what John's thinking as his throat jumps and he swallows, hard, and he says, "Okay. Okay, Sherlock." He blinks hard, too, cupping the side of his face like he's something precious. "Okay."

"You're _gorgeous, _Sherlock," is the next thing John says, his mouth back on his, and after the fucking night he's had it takes everything for him not to just burst into laughter aloud.

John thinks it's because of the scars. He thinks Sherlock is afraid that he's unattractive and doesn't want John to see him like that and needs to be reassured, as if John's current row of enthusiastic kisses being pressed down his neck wasn't evidence enough, that he is still appealing.

Sherlock could not care less about modern society's standards of beauty. He cares even less than that that he is, actually, rather aware that his two years away have scarred him in ways that society would consider ugly.

What he _does _care about is the gutted look he knows he will watch form on John's face, the first time all the scars are there for him to see.

John is going a little slower, now. So ridiculously insistent upon reassuring Sherlock with every turn. It's also five in the morning and Sherlock knows exactly the ways to use his mouth to bring him to the edge, and Sherlock swallows and swallows and kisses him, and it's not even half past five as John collapses back and pulls him into his arms and nuzzles his head to his hair and sounds as happy as he's ever heard him before.

"I love you so goddamn much," he croaks, damp cheek pressed to his head, and John is a horrible liar, so it must be true. "You gorgeous, wonderful madman. My madman." He kisses him hard again, and again, and again. "You fantastic moron. I love you."

"I love you, John."

He says it because he's supposed to, but just like every time before, he's just a little dazed to realise just how true it is.

Everything else is an unquantifiable wreck, but he does, still, at least, have John Watson.

* * *

John doesn't sleep well, in what's left of the night. He curls tighter, even out cold, mumbling his name multiple times, his eyes flickering in restless nightmares, and once...

"No. D... _don't... _Sherlock..._"_

He imagines one doesn't have to be Sherlock Holmes, to guess what he's dreaming about.

Sherlock stays curled on his other side, tracing with a nail along the back of John's skilled, careful hand. He counts all the little bones, hard ridges against the skin. Touches carefully the strong finger he knows he broke in early childhood. Curls his thumb against tiny mark on his wrist, the scrape from John's slip the day of his fall. John must've picked and scratched at the scab for months.

He doesn't sleep.

John's phone goes off at exactly 8:30, and Sherlock's head is buried in the crook of his arm, so it's safe for him to smile as he flops on his stomach with a moan.

"Fuck," he gasps, "fuck, fuck, fucking _shit,"_ and Sherlock smirks.

"Sherlock," John starts, still muddling about on his hands and knees, trying to slip out of bed. "Sher- you're asleep. Of course you're still asleep; how'd you sleep through that, god. Sherlock. _Sherlock." _He squeezes his hand, lips pressed to the top of his head. "Sherlock, I'm so sorry, I have to go. Work."

"Hmm," he murmurs, appropriately incoherent and sleepy, and is rewarded with a smile that he can feel in his hair in return.

"I'll leave some breakfast for you. Please eat some, at least a little. Whenever you roll out of bed, you know."

"Hmm," he murmurs again, and John's smile becomes a smirk as he pulls away.

John's happier than he's been in weeks, and what's more, Sherlock thinks he is, too.

John leaves. Sherlock, left alone and cold in bed, still does not sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The violin piece Sherlock was attempting was Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, by Saint-Saëns. Based off the pieces he plays/composes in the series, Sherlock would actually probably not enjoy this piece very much at all, but it's one of /my/ all time favourites; I play it whenever my hand is strong enough to allow me too (which sadly isn't very frequently these days). It's not the hardest of pieces, but would be a /horrible/ choice for an out of practice violinist (and one who's still recovering, at that).
> 
> Next chapter is the Mary Chapter, in which Sherlock is a Bit Not Good all over the place. Thanks so much for reading, and as always, feedback is always welcome and appreciated <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments/kudos!!!
> 
> My little OT3 heart did its happiest song and dance in years with the first two episodes of series 3, only to be taken right off the edge and shattered by "she saved my life. I mean, yeah, she literally killed me, but still saved my life somehow." I adored her friendship with Sherlock so much, until, you know, she actually killed him ;/ However, it looks like a few of those positive feelings for Mary remained and survived into this fic ;u; Here, she's Still an Assassin but Also a Good Friend Mary to BAMF Sherlock and Oblivious John.

The best thing about being Sherlock Holmes, he thinks, is that he is twice the adrenaline junkie as John Watson ever was, and he knows how to find a hit around every single corner.

Correction: he was twice the adrenaline junkie _before _he fell.

Now, Sherlock needs it about five times as much. Luckily for him, there's a high waiting for him, just about ten minutes away.

Lestrade doesn't notice it, which is an unsurprising but woeful tragedy, as far as he's concerned. Sherlock really is the only one in the room to realise the fact that the murderer is _still there. _Yes- it really is just him. Lestrade is crouching next to the body, wholly and utterly oblivious, John is lingering at the door frowning at some inconsequential letter lifted from the nearby coffee table, Donovan is mucking about, as usual- and Sherlock is the only one to realise there's one person in the house that shouldn't be.

Well, it'll hardly be the _first _time he has to do the Yard's job for them, will it?

It's inordinately easy, to slip away. He fakes a phone call from Mycroft, who never calls him and yet no one look twice, anyway- _idiots-_ and is slinking towards the stairs before anyone can be any the wiser. If his suspicion is correct, and he's Sherlock Holmes, so it is, then there's a false panel in the ceiling. He's waiting for the police to leave to come out. He's waiting for a roomful of idiots to not notice the slightly cleverer idiot in hiding and then, he'll be free to sneak out, tamper with the crime scene, and steal away as he pleases.

Sherlock grins, and it's all teeth.

It really is such a thrill, being the most clever person in the room.

* * *

What he'll tell people later, is that it didn't go according to plan.

It did, though.

It really, really did.

* * *

They end up toppling out the window together, four different ways he could've ended this here and now shelved because he wants a blood-pounding chase and by god, he's going to get it. The fall is rough, shattering glass and a sharp cry and a shoulder knocked out of the socket, but the police are slow on the uptake, as ever, and Sherlock pelts off after the suspect with leaves in his hair and mud on his face and it's the best he's felt in _years._

John will be so disappointed.

The chase is glorious, and his feet pound over the pavement in a way that clears his head so exquisitely he never wants to stop running. In fact, he doesn't. He lets the man run for three extra blocks just because he can, he waits for the poor sod to tire himself out and is disappointed when he does. He runs and runs and runs, and he is in Afghanistan and Venezuela and Russia all at once when he slips to the side of the first sloppy punch and disarms the man, blow by calculated blow.

There's a knife. He's pretty sure there's blood. It's all a bit of a blur, detective inspector.

But that's how it goes, and that's how Sherlock ends up standing over a winded, dazed, whining imbecile on his back and with blood on his hands. Some of it is his dead wife's. Some, dripping from his nose and splattered all over, is obviously his.

Some is also Sherlock's, but he just really doesn't care.

"Well," he announces, hands dusted off, the blood howling in his ears, "that was tedious. Wouldn't you say?"

The poor sod is still too utterly winded to respond.

Sherlock smiles, fanning his coat out to easier drop to his knees beside him. "You could've given me a more interesting time of it, though. Really! You barely managed five minutes of my time. Next time," he chides, patting his face in a way that makes him flinch, "do better. Hm?"

There's still no answer. Sherlock's heart is still merrily racing, adrenaline the wings under his heels, and here on his knees in a filthy, blustery alley, blood just starting to soak through his shirt, he is at home for the first time in months.

Then come the sirens.

And then, Sherlock runs.

Mind palace John is there, a voice in his head but Sherlock sees him standing to the mouth of the alley, expectant and so demanding he could've mistaken him for Mycroft. "The police on their way," he urges, and when Sherlock sprints past him he appears again, waiting just at the end of the street. "Your safehouse is five blocks north, one block west. You'll outstrip the police if you hurry. Go,Sherlock, _go!" _

And he does.

The sirens don't follow him, because the police are stupid everywhere in the world. Stupid, incompetent, lazy; so _woefully _incompetent. They'll be lucky if they manage to find the criminal he left gift-wrapped for them on the side of the road.

"What are you doing, Sherlock? _Faster, _not slower! Who told you could slow down yet?!"

"Well, John," he huffs, ragged and low under his breath, "I think that's the gaping wound in my side-"

"So you're getting as fat and lazy as Mycroft, is it? Do you want him here instead of me? Let's be honest, Sherlock, positive punishment is the only conditioning tactic that'll ever work on you- maybe..."

The rest of whatever he'd meant for John to say fades, and the world blooms back in dark around him.

"Sherlock. Sherlock, you have to stitch it now. _Sherlock."_

"I th-thought you... wanted me to _run..._ m-make up your-"

"Change of plans. If you keep going you could faint."

"I'm... S'hlock 'olmes... I don't _faint..."_

"If you keep going you _will _faint and I'm not dragging your lazy arse home. Sit down and stitch it now, Sherlock! Sit down, you stupid, defective idiot. You moronic freak, lazy imbecile, _sit down,_ you're supposed to come home to me, Sherlock, you can't do that if you're _stupid-"_

Sherlock does, in fact, sit down.

And John is still there, shouting at him, though in Sherlock's fading awareness he's pretty sure there's German in there instead of English. German sounds angrier, and John is _very_ angry. Rightfully so. Stupid, defective idiot Sherlock.

He yanks free the loose thread in his trousers, the loose thread every pair that he owns now has, just for this case. There's a needle, too, half a suture kit hidden deep in his coat's pockets, and cotton thread isn't half as good as medical thread but he really doesn't give a toss.

"Sherlock. Hang on. Sherlock, your hand's shaking; your shoulder. Fix your shoulder."

"Oh, what _now?"_

"You dislocated your shoulder in the fall. Stop falling out windows, Sherlock. Fix it. _Fix it now, _Sherlock- I _swear, _you massive arsehole, if you don't make it back to me because of a _dislocated shoulder, _you fucking irredeemable _dumbass-"_

"Love you too, John," Sherlock sighs, high on adrenaline and dizzy on blood loss. And _oh,_ the things he does for John Watson.

Relocating a dislocated shoulder on his own is a bloody buggering hell. He's done it twice, and now, it's about to be the third time.

It hurts badly enough that he'd cut his own arm off, if he could.

He gags himself with his scarf instead, hidden four blocks away from the police and not far enough, and John chides him or not having solid enough self-control to silence the cry without it.

"Now stitch," John says, and his shoulder is one giant throbbing wound of pulsating agony, but it's one giant throbbing wound that's at least in the right place. "Do it now, Sherlock. Do it for me, you dammed fool. Come on, love."

Sherlock glances sideways, and John disintegrates, like dust. "That's new. What happened to positive punishment being the only tactic that worked on me?"

"You sodding stupid motherfucking clot-"

Sherlock stitches the knife slash that skates along his ribs, tugging it closed and knitting it shut. Mind palace John yells at him all the while, and he misses him and wants to go home.

He wants to go home.

He misses John. _Real _John. Not mind-palace conjured John that makes him do things. Not mind-palace John that has to yell at him. Not mind-palace John, who just shouts at him non-stop when he's stupid, and he'd stupid most of the time, really, so John shouts most of the time.

_Real _John.

It is acutely melodramatic, and poetically stupid, and criminally unforgivable, but Sherlock bleeds out over his own fingers and it feels like with every pump of his heart, further spilling blood down his stomach, that the wound is John, and the blood is how much he misses him. The wound is home, and the blood is how much he misses it. The wound is his mistakes, and the blood is how _sorry _he is.

"It's deep," mind palace Molly warns. Oh, he's hit the trigger for Molly, now. Wonderful. At least he's not hit the trigger for Mycroft.

"Molly," he sighs.

"You need to clean this with your flask when you get to the safehouse. It's probably going to get infected, too." She tuts quietly at him, and he can just almost feel it scraping at the edges of his ribs. "Stop by a hospital on your way back- oh, what sort've antibiotics will you find here...?"

"Levo... levoflox-"

"No," John interrupts, but his voice sounds just a bit like Mycroft's. "Remember? April seventh, 2012. I complained to you that I'd just gotten word from on high, no more prescribing Levofloxacin. Recent studies show that the side-effects are too severe, considering the efficacy of newer alternatives."

"All right, _wikipedia._" As if he cares about _side-effects. _Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his fingers tight against both his temples, either side of his skull. "...Cephalosporins."

"Good boy," John says, and Molly smiles with him.

He doesn't want to move. He's tired and sore and dizzy and in pain, and he does not want to move. He's safe and comfortable right here, thank you very much. He's alone here. That means all the variables are controlled, and that's all that he needs to be _safe._

"Get up, Sherlock," John commands, and fuck him, fucking _fuck _him, but he does.

He slips through the city, flitting though back alleys and hiding in shadow on halfway numb feet and a spinning head. To the hospital; to the hospital. What is he looking for, when he gets there? What language do they speak here? Here, _here, _he thinks frustratedly, drilling circles into his temples with his thumbs; here, _where is he-?_

Sherlock blinks dizzily skywards. St. Bart's. That's the nearest hospital, that's right. St. Bart's.

It takes a few seconds more, for it to click.

When it does, and the dizzy fugue state finally starts to fade, Sherlock only knows that he wants the numbness back.

Oh, this is unfortunate.

(And embarrassing, and utterly humiliating, and worst of all, _stupid, _but overall, just really, really unfortunate).

"You're going to be really, really mad at me, aren't you?"

John grins, and it's so sharp he could cut himself with it. "Yes," he says, and fades.

* * *

In the end, he still hides for another solid five hours, clutching his side and shivering, even in his coat.

In the end, he _still _can't find the words, because in the end, he can see the look on John's face when he gets back home and he knows he doesn't know what to say.

So, in the end, he once again goes to Molly Hooper.

* * *

_I WANT TO GO HOME._

* * *

Molly Hooper just about has a heart attack, then just about gives him a twenty-minute lecture, and then, after looking him in the eye just a bit too closely, alarmingly looks as if she's about to cry. Then, she calls John.

Then, she calls a cab, and takes him home.

* * *

John is not happy.

At least, that's how Sherlock knows to interpret the look on his face, when they reach Baker Street together. John is already outside, pacing and mouth tight and shoulders hunched like a snarling bear. What Sherlock _wants _is to quietly pretend this sequence of events never happened, though, so he sniffs and tugs at his collar, coat pulled in a protective cocoon around him, and he puts on his haughtiest sneer ever as he rises from the cab.

If he looks smug, then maybe, John'll just stay mad.

"Ah, good," he drawls, and gives his coat another dramatic tug. "You waited up for me. You better have put the tea on, because-"

"Oh, thank _god-"_

Sherlock's still dizzy on his feet, and he's still a bit busy trying to stop his vision from swimming so nauseatingly his stomach tilts. Because of that, he doesn't see John's approach.

But he does hear it, and what's more, he feels every inch of it.

"You stupid, stupid, stupid man," John chokes, and he squeezes him so tight that the world whites out and Sherlock just about goes cross-eyed. His shoulder fucking _hurts. _"You mad idiot, Sherlock, you scared the hell out of us..."

"Us...?"

_"Us!" _John cries again, and Sherlock finds himself taken by the shoulders and shoved back just a step, just far enough for John's stricken eyes to meet his, a face that looks like he's been in a state for hours. "We find the guy you were chasing all alone with the hell beaten out of him, and there's blood in the alley that isn't his, you're _nowhere _to be found, your phone goes straight to voicemail, we thought you'd been _kidnapped _or something, Jesus Christ-"

His phone. Yes. He'd taken the battery out. Instinct, another trigger; take the battery out of his phone if he's being tracked. He'd taken it out the instant he'd heard the sirens.

He at least hopes he'd had the sense to drop it back into his pocket instead of losing it on the street.

Sherlock figures he really ought to say as such, but his shoulder is about to make him faint, so, yes, well, John is just going to have to do without.

"-and Greg was about to call in a manhunt for you until Mycroft said- oh my god, Sherlock, you bloody idiot-"

"John. _John."_

"-and you... right. Sorry. Sorry." Deep breath, and Sherlock hears it in time with a siren a block over, a siren that makes his heart lurch and the world under his feet swim into jelly and- oh, unfortunate, he's falling, now-

"_Woah, _okay, here we go, Molly-?"

"It's okay, John, I've got him."

"Right, right. Come on, Sherlock, let's get you upstairs. I'm still yelling at you, mind, that's just on hold until you're not so dead on your feet- Molly, what's wrong with him, did you see...?"

Error: too much pain and stimuli, overwhelmed receptors; no longer able to function. Shutdown required.

John is with him, though. John is safe.

Sherlock shuts down.

_Again. _

* * *

When he next comes back online, it is to find himself undressed, as sore and used as a wrung out flannel, and in a bathtub.

Sherlock blinks.

_His _bathtub, in fact. Baker Street, with his long legs folded awkwardly to just barely fit, and a towel folded across them that doesn't do well to disguise that he's wearing his pants and nothing else. His shoulder is still a miserably throbbing wound, and his side still aches distantly under the dizzy cloud of fatigue and detachment, but the room is no longer spinning, so that's a plus.

John is there.

Another plus.

Should be.

He hopes.

John sits cross-legged there on the floor himself, sorting through his medical kit in his lap, a smudge of blood already on one thumb. No sense of urgency about him, but there is a faint line of stress still etched against his tight jaw, and there is still a faint shadow of anger in his eyes. He's still angry, then.

He's also still worried.

Considering Sherlock is currently dripping blood into the bathtub, he supposes that worry might not _entirely _be unwarranted.

"Sherlock," John greets, the moment the good doctor looks up and sees him looking back. "Back with me, then?" There's a smile there, one that's thin and just a bit wary, and Sherlock can do nothing but nod back. "Just got a bit overwhelmed, I think- no sign of a head injury. But you didn't get hit in the head at any point, did you? Tell me the truth, Sherlock."

Sherlock scowls back. As if he's stupid enough to lie about that. "I did not."

"Thought so. Molly agreed, but I wanted to be sure." He shifts awkwardly, legs still folded, and for a moment seems unable to so much as look at him.

He's still mad, Sherlock notes.

The silence stretches on.

It stretches on just long enough that Sherlock's patience runs out, and he shifts about, holding his entire injured side immobile as he tries to work his feet underneath himself. But that's all thats needed for John to stiffen, his eyes flickering up again and a firm hand coming to catch Sherlock's, just as he manages to at last take some of his own weight again. "No, Sherlock, you're still bleeding. We're taking care of this here; you can get somewhere less uncomfortable when you're not dripping blood on the sofa." He hesitates again, hands wringing in his lap before twitching back to his medical kit, as if just seeking something to do. "I called Sarah, at the clinic; she's bringing some supplies over; I'm holding off on cleaning the wound until then. We'll be able to bind your shoulder then, too. For now, I suppose I can get some ice for you, if you want...?"

Sherlock shakes his head carefully, keeping silent. Even that gives a little twinge of pain through his shoulder; even that, he doesn't care. This amount of pain is bearable- this amount of pain is better than bearable; it's _helpful. _Keeps him in the room; keeps his focus here instead of dozing far away.

John looks disappointed, a little, but not surprised. "Yeah, I figured. That's fine, if you're sure. It looks..." He swallows, his throat jumping, and a new shadow crosses his face that feels like bugs crawling on Sherlock's skin. "Molly didn't do that great a job, relocating it. Which is fine, it's not her fault- she probably hasn't had to do that since school, consid-"

"It wasn't Molly."

"Sorry?"

"It wasn't Molly," he says again, and he probably shouldn't, because John won't like it. John never likes it. "It was me."

"It was-" John's face does a funny little thing, a funny little spasm, and his eyes go wide in disbelief. "_You? _You relocated _your own_ shoulder?"

"Yes, John, I do believe that is what I just-"

"Jesus _Christ, _Sherlock, what the _hell-" _and that, somehow, is the final straw.

John shoves to his feet, back turned and hands in his hair, tugging all the way to the roots with the sharp force of each breath. He whirls back to face Sherlock once, his face coloring an almost curious shade of red, then whirls back around again, supplies forgotten on the floor and shoulders bunched and knotted like a coiled spring. "What is _wrong _with you?!" he finally cries, but he doesn't face Sherlock, not yet, and Sherlock clenches his jaw into silence and his fists into a tense wariness and says nothing. "You _moron, _Sherlock Holmes, you _terrified _me, do you realise that, I thought something had happened to you and all this time you were just- you show up here, your shoulder's the same color as Mrs. Hudson's apron and you've just off and knitted yourself back together like a shirt, _yes_, Sherlock, I saw that, we're going to have to take those out, and it's going to hurt, and I _don't really care, _Sher-"

"Oh, will you stop _fussing-"_

"One word!" John shouts, hands thrown up in the air. "Once again, _one word_, that's all I would've needed, just one little text from the great Sherlock Holmes letting me know that you're fine. But I suppose you were too busy stitching yourself up from right next to a hospital to waste the time! Who told you to do that, huh, who told you that was a bloody good idea-"

"You did," Sherlock retorts, tongue curing in his mouth, and that was just yet another mistake.

"Me? _Me?!_ Oh, when the hell-" He's pacing again, hands still caught in his hair, looking halfway to hysterical. "Let me guess, August 27th 2010, I made an offhand joke at two in the morning, fucking perfect recall-"

"December 24th, 2012, actually," he snarls back, which is yet another mistake, but what the _hell _does he care. "And on many occasions after it."

"_Perfect recall, _here we go again-" and John looks about one annoyance away from blowing a gasket as he whirls about, face still scarlet. And John's not Sherlock, so it takes him a moment, his brain making connections at a quarter the speed, but Sherlock sees when it clicks, all the same, his eyes widening and foul mood frozen right in its tracks.

"But. But that was after you'd... left," he says faintly, voice gone oddly flat.

And _there it is. _

Sherlock wants to snarl back to him again. To say _yes, GOOD, John, do you get it now? You've been in my head for two years, John, I put you there to stay alive, and I know you think I'm just being a stubborn, difficult nutter but the believe it or not the last thing I want is to cause you more pain. Believe it or not I'm trying my best and I don't know what's wrong with me because for once my best isn't good enough._

_My best isn't good enough anymore, John, _he wants to say.

He doesn't, because John is mad as spitting hell, and Sherlock will kill himself if John _pities _him before he's angry with him.

He doesn't, because there's footsteps in the hall outside, likely Sarah Sawyer from the clinic, and John's staring at him like he's re-evaluating everything he's ever known about him, and there's no room to say a single word.

"Hello; John?" Two gentle raps on the door, a warm clearing of the throat in greeting. "Your landlady let me in, I hope that's okay?" And-

Sherlock stares.

That is _not _Sarah Sawyer.

"Mary," John says, voice vacant and limp with surprise, and _oh._

_This _is Mary.

"Yes," she says. Mary. Mary Morstan. Former significant other of John, Sherlock's John. Nurse at John's clinic, worked a double shift today, had to change because a child spit up on her this morning, so comfortable here that she has certainly been here before, smiling at John, smiling non-hostilely at Sherlock. Not thrown at all by the sight of a half-naked man bleeding into a bathtub; checkered past, of some kind. Dressed well; lives above her means, but lacks the look about her that would suggest family money. Perfectly non-hostile, perfectly friendly, but Mycroft rears up in the back of his head, because the paranoia is always, always there. _Something missing, brother dear, what are you missing, what are you missing tonight-?_

The slippery slope of the deductions slams through his head in the space of half a second, and then, already, they are all moving on.

"John," Mary says, nodding warmly, but her eyes are on Sherlock. "I'm sorry, Dr. Sawyer was called away on an emergency, so she asked if I could pop on over here for her, if that's all right?And, you- you must be the famous Sherlock Holmes, hmm?"

It takes John another startled second to be able to respond at all. Sherlock, for his part, continues to drip blood between his clenched fingers, and wish he were just about anywhere but here.

"That's... yes. That's- um- that's fine. Thanks," John stammers, sounding increasingly awkward by the second. He coughs; Sherlock continues to wish for spontaneous disintegration. "I- thank you, Mary, you're- Sherlock, this is Mary, Mary, yes, this is Sherlock. You can shake hands when he gets his right hand privileges back, this time next week."

"A full week? That's a bit much, don't you think?"

"Yes, well, that's what happens when patients try and relocate a shoulder by themselves," John says, and Sherlock's fists curl and stomach tightens and he wants nothing more than to leave this entire hateful nightmare behind.

So it's laugh-about-Sherlock time, is it? As if it's anything _new. _Let's laugh at the stupid thing Sherlock's done now; got his head in the clouds, couldn't possibly have known any better. Let's shake our heads at the nutter's newest shenanigan, no one understand what goes on in his funny little head. Let's all roll our eyes at funny little Sherlock, and pretend he's too off his his own little world to notice.

Sherlock is abruptly so _angry _he could storm from the room, splatter blood all over Mrs. Hudson's floor, and slam the door in John's face.

He _wants _to.

Mustn't.

Must be good.

Must be normal.

"I like to be difficult," he says, the words spit through gritted teeth. And he needs to be spiteful, but mustn't hurt John, not anymore, after today, so the next words come anyway, and it's all he can do to spit them out in words that aren't English. Pretty sure they're Hindi. Doesn't care. _"Chuup kar, huhraamee." Shut up, you bastard. _

John just rolls his eyes, good-naturedly again and more than a tad impatiently; _oh, there goes Sherlock again. Saying things nobody understands; there goes Sherlock. _"Behave," he chides, then, "Mary, I'd like to start with the antibiotics, please-"

But Sherlock's not listening.

Because when Sherlock had snarled in a far-away language, and John had rolled his eyes and smiled and sighed, Mary-

Mary looks sharply at him. Just a flicker of her eyes, that's all. Eyes that meet right on Sherlock's and narrow, shadowed and suddenly tense. Eyes that are tense because she'd heard the words, venomous, wounded, and not at all a joke- because she'd heard them, and _understood _them.

She says nothing, of course. Nothing at all, and in not even half a second the moment has passed, and she's all smiles again.

Sherlock narrows his eyes back.

Now, spontaneous disintegration is his third priority, and getting for John to shut the hell up is second.

His first, an instinct born and cultivated and honed sharp as broken glass in two years on the run, is to grab John, shove him behind him, and not let him go until the unknown variable has been quantified, categorised, and resolved.

Sherlock keeps his mouth shut, smiling thinly at the both of them, and observes.

* * *

Did you assign any security undercover to John's clinic while I was away? -SH

Of course. -MH

Were any of the agents female? -SH

No. -MH

What is this about? -MH

...

Do I need to interfere? -MH

You're being sued for gender discrimination, obviously. Go bother somebody else. -SH

Very well. -MH

I would appreciate it if you allowed me to worry slightly less constantly, brother mine. -MH

Goodnight. -MH

Sherlock knows that his brother is, at this very moment, sending for background checks for every female employed at John's clinic in the past two years.

Sherlock turns his phone off, rolling his eyes at the very existence of annoying, nagging big brothers, and resettles himself back on his left side, side a nagging itch and shoulder a dull throbbing of pain.

John sleeps behind him. John, who is still mad at him. John, who thinks he ran off on his own and stitched himself up and spent the day shivering under a bridge because- well, Sherlock doesn't even know.

Because what? He was bored? He was stubborn? He's Sherlock Holmes, and just _does things _like that?

John, who, it is becoming apparent, Sherlock is incapable of doing anything at all for except making him miserable.

"We should stop this," he murmurs. The words slipped out lower than an earthquake against the sheets, muffled and only possible as a near-silent croak in the middle of the night. "I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to try. I'm sorry. We should stop."

John's asleep, of course. Not touching him, but close enough that Sherlock can feel the warmth of his weight, curled up just behind him. Doesn't hear him.

That's all right, though.

Because Sherlock might be unable to make John happy, and he might break everything precious he ever touches, but the one thing he _can _do, has given everything that he has to do, is keep John safe.

So Sherlock lies there again, blinking fuzzily against sleep that will not come, and he thinks about Mary Morstan: the woman with the unknown past, who, as he'd properly deduced, has absolutely been in 221B Baker Street before, despite only meeting John a full twelve months after he'd moved out.

* * *

"It's a _medical conference, _Sherlock, it'll be boring-"

"You're interested in the topic. Obviously."

"Well, sure, but I'm pretty sure I'll live, missing it... I don't even know why Sarah asked me to go in the first place."

"She asked you, because she knew you'd be interested, and would like to go. Obviously."

"Well, _obviously, _I'm not going, Sherlock. Thanks to you and the mess you made of yourself."

"Oh, John. You do understand, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and will not, in fact, keel over dead, the very moment that you leave me to my own devices."

"As if I'm bloody stupid enough to believe you wouldn't be out the door, running all over London, tearing your stitches the very instant I walked out the-"

"For _god's sake, _John, _go!" _

There's a short, startled silence. Sherlock now rather regrets throwing his shoe, because now, all he has left to throw is a pillow. Decidedly less dramatic, and now, all he'd accomplish is looking foolish.

His fingers twitch, and he considers throwing it anyway.

"All right," John finally acquiesces. His shoulders and voice strained with the tension of one very clearly not happy with what he was saying, and when he sent a grim smile in Sherlock's direction, it was clear that that wasn't very convinced, either. "If you're so bloody insistent about it, fine. I'll go."

Sherlock smiles.

"And Mary will be by to check up on you every day that I'm gone, and she'll be in charge of all medication, and if she calls to let me know you're being uncooperative in _any way, _I'll be on the first plane home, Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock huffs and rolls his eyes and scowls. He glares at John and John stares straight back, and there's no sign in him of even the slightest glimmer of weakness or a chance that he could talk his way out of it.

And when John turns away again, murmuring something about tea, Sherlock smiles grimly to himself again.

* * *

As John had arranged, and Sherlock had devised, John leaves for the conference in Dublin the next morning.

As John had arranged, and Sherlock had devised, Mary is there, knocking at Baker Street, that very night.

"It's nice to see you again, Sherlock," she says, all smiles and warmth; so _very_ polite. It makes his skin crawl. She gives him another innocent sort of look, raising an eyebrow at the state of him. "After everything John's told me about you, I'm not even surprised you already took the sling off."

"Yes," Sherlock says, again through his teeth. "Well, I do love to be difficult, Ms. Morstan."

"You've said," Mary returns. Her smile, Sherlock considers, reminds him of a snake.

He had binned the sling, the moment John had left this morning. Not because he intends to use his arm- of course he doesn't. He's not stupid, and he's not that pointlessly self-destructive, no matter what John thinks.

But willingly having one limb bound isn't just intolerable, anymore. It is tantamount to cripplingly stupidity.

Sherlock, for everything else that he is, is not stupid.

Mary settles all her supplies down as Sherlock watches, preparing antibiotics, gauze, a heating pad, and it's all so mundane and dull that Sherlock would laugh if it wasn't so patently absurd. "We'll do the antibiotics first, then," she's saying, already flicking the air bubbles out from the injection, "and please, Sherlock, do call me Mary."

"What for?" he asks, soft and silky. And, of course, he smiles. "We both know that isn't your real name."

Mary, as she's called, goes very, very still. Smile, frozen in place, like a sculpture carved from ice.

_She's good, _Sherlock considers, raising an eyebrow. _Very good. _

"Ms. Morstan," he chides, just as her eyes start to slide to him. The syringe is turning in her hands, neatly situated between thumb and forefinger: air embolism, she's thinking. He'd be dead before she got to the street. "I'd like for you to take a moment, and consider everything that you know about me, and everything that you know about my brother. And then, I'd like for you to consider how far, exactly, you think you'll get, if you try and make a run for it, right now."

It's reckless, yes. Reckless, and dangerous, and quite daring.

It's just not as reckless as it looks, because John's gun rests in the small of Shelock's back.

Ah, how he's _missed this. _

Mary Morstan is, in fact, very, very good. She does not make a run for it; she does not approach Sherlock again. She just stands there with narrowed eyes, every trace of that warm, professional nurse scattered from her face to leave eyes that are ice cold, and she's tense as a bowstring and dangerous as an attack dog, and Sherlock can only stare back and smile, because he's dangerous, too.

He loves being dangerous.

"Well?" she asks, at last. Stays on her feet, eyes flitting from the windows to the still open door to Sherlock, syringe that remains a one-hit, one shot only kill, still turning in her hands. "How long have you known?"

"The specifics? Oh, that took a spot of research or two. But I knew you weren't who John said you were the moment we met."

"That quickly? So, which is it- paranoid, or overprotective?" Slowly, inch by inch, she moves to sit gently back down, though they both know it's of no consequence. In his current condition, she will move faster than him. She will fight him, if needs must, and she will win. "I know that I am not that sloppy. Not even for the great Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock steeples his fingers neatly under his chin. "All three, actually... though in not the way you think. Yes, I find I am cultivating a sense of healthy paranoia, at the moment, and I do tend to be rather overprotective of John- but first and foremost? Sloppy." He pauses, for a moment, tasting the bitterness that's gone raw in his throat. "_I_ was sloppy."

Mary says nothing. Just watches, silent and guarded, and dangerous as the snake that she is.

She doesn't move a single inch, in fact, even as Sherlock does, stretching the stitches in his side and the strained muscles of his shoulder, feeling the whole of him flex and thrill with the danger of it. He almost wants for her to attack.

"Moriarty stepped onto a rooftop in July of 2012, fully planning to commit suicide, and take either myself, or John Watson, DI Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson with him. Moriarty also had a great deal of respect for me, and did not underestimate my abilities: he fully expected that I would find a way off that roof that kept everyone dear to me alive. Now, then." He narrows his eyes, fingers curling, flexing again. Three probable ways for Mary to move from the sofa; five practical ways for Sherlock to draw and stop her before she was gone. _Who is she._ "Nine months after I faked my death, a young, conventionally attractive, single female is employed at John's clinic, with a background substantial enough to pass a second look, but not a third. She plies John for information about me, in what some might mistake as mere friendly concern, but what, to a less blind eye, comes across as a very slow and careful honey trap."

It is, if he has to boil it all down just to one simple word, _sloppy._

He should've looked into Mary's past the day John had first texted about her.

Sloppy.

_Sloppy!_

"It's not what you think," Mary cautions, and Sherlock's instincts crawl on a bed of nails.

"Oh? Then, you've got another explanation for why an undercover intelligence agent and assassin was assigned to John's side, concurrently with there being a contract out on his life? Please, Mary- I'm all ears. But, before you start..." Sherlock flexes his fingers, again, feels the comfortable, reassuring weight of the gun. For a moment, wants nothing more than to have it right in his hand, right now. "I have killed, for John Watson. I have died, for John Watson. I have lived, for John Watson. Don't think to believe, Mary, not for one second, that I would ever hesitate to kill _you, _for John Watson."

Silence. Silence, once again.

An assassin, silent and tense and waiting in his own sitting room, lingering there with hands that had touched John. Hands that had touched an unsuspecting, defenseless, sleeping John. Hands that had been hired to kill John.

Hands that, if Sherlock had ever _once_ given into the desperate misery scratching at the insides of his skull to text back, to call him, to beg _John, I'm alive- _

Hands that would've choked the life out of his John, before Sherlock had ever come home.

_If John had died before I got home..._

_If John had died if John had died if John had died_

It still feels like his world is crumbling beneath his feet, and he's known for days.

_If John had died..._

"I was hired to watch John, by Moriarty."

"To kill him. Don't mince words, Mary."

"...to kill John. Yes." Her fingers twitch.

Sherlock's heart squeezes in time with the breath caught in his throat.

He could tear her apart with his bare hands.

"He paid for three years," she says quietly, not quite meeting Sherlock's eyes. "Moriarty hired me and told me that you would have three years, to either kill yourself or stay out of sight. If you managed to hide for that long, he said that he'd consider you the winner, and whatever your arrangement was would be null and void."

"And yet, here we are. Not three years out yet- and here we are."

"I told you, it's not what you think."

"Hm..." Sherlock's fingers interlace again, curled and tense underneath his chin. His shoulder throbs, and perhaps it's halfway the strained muscles, halfway the unbearable stillness of it all, sitting there across the room from John Watson's would-be murderer. She would have killed him. _She would have killed him. _

There's another short silence. The gears turn in the dust in his head, and then, together, all at once, they _click. _

Of course.

"You got too close," he murmurs wonderingly. "You were supposed to kill John, but you got too close to him. You couldn't do it."

The look on her face confirms every last word of the unwritten story, and once again it is all Sherlock can do not to laugh. Though, surely, nothing is funny.

She's not so good after all, then.

Or perhaps, she is, but John is just that much _better._

Because that's how it is, isn't it? John had already fixed one defective sociopath, so is it any surprise he'd tame a deadly assassin, too? Except that's not true, not really. Sherlock has killed himself and willingly burned his own heart out; he knows he's not a sociopath, no matter how many psychiatrists he's manipulated into diagnosing him as one, and Mary, well, he doesn't know Mary, but she's sitting there ready to kill him and he's still ready to kill her.

Mary is _very_ good, and Sherlock, too, is _very _good at what he does. John just happens to be... better.

And tonight, that's not enough.

"I was wanting to stop anyway," Mary tells him, and what's more, Sherlock can't even hear a lie. "You and John were meant to be my last job. I was going to leave, when it was finished, when-"

"When you'd killed John."

"...Yes."

Sherlock's fingers twitched again. Something red hot in his head broke and _howled._

_When you'd killed John..._

_"When you'd killed John,"_ he hears, the scream as if from far, far away, and he's on his feet so quickly a stitch is torn in his side and the weight of the gun is familiar in his hand. This, this woman, this _creature, _she would have killed John. And Mycroft would have texted Sherlock in the middle of nowhere, or perhaps not at all, perhaps he wouldn't have said anything at all until he'd come home to _nothing, _this assassin gone and his John gone. What's he doing, sitting here, talking to her, listening to her side? _She'd have killed John, she'd have killed John..._

"Give me a reason. You're convinced you have one, so give it to me, then; give it to me _now!" _he snarls, or maybe he's panting; doesn't know, doesn't care. "I've spent two years killing Moriarty's men, Mary, so give me a reason that I shouldn't kill the last one that I missed!"

"Because you can trust me."

"Why on earth would I trust _you?"_

"Because," Mary says again, "you can."

She doesn't move from the sofa, doesn't even move to release the syringe even with the gun on her. Sherlock is not so stupid as to even think of lowering it.

"I've known you were alive for months," she tells him flatly. "And John is still alive. You took John from me, and you, too, are still alive. You tell me, then, Sherlock- what is there to deduce about that?"

Sherlock still feels rather like he's just been tossed onto a bed of lit coals. Blood boiling, palace shattering, foundations of existence itself liquifying under his feet.

It feels like that night he turned around in the pool, and saw John Watson waiting for him. It feels like lying on blood-spattered pavement hearing _he's my friend, let me through. _It feels like seeing _I'm so sorry, Sherlock _over and over and _OVER _as he loses himself around the world and John grieves for the sociopath who'd destroyed him.

It feels like he should break Mary in half, for daring to ever, ever, ever, come _near _John Watson.

In the spreading silence that cracks the world around them, Mary, slowly, carefully, her hands raised and fingers spread, stands. She does not take a step towards Sherlock, but instead tilts her head towards the door, a clear announcement of her plans to retreat. "How much does your brother know?"

Sherlock sneers under his breath. "Mycroft is a scientist, not a detective; he needs more evidence than a deduction to act. If you want to run, then you'll have to do it now. I give him no more than twelve hours before he finds proof of who you really are and starts blowing up my phone calling me a reckless idiot for speaking to you on my own."

Mary nods quietly, just once. She is, in fact, very good: Sherlock can read nothing on her face from this, the news that the most powerful man in all of England will be coming for her in half a day garnering nothing more than a grim-faced, calm nod.

It is her next words, however, that finally give him pause.

"Will you tell John?"

John.

John is what she's worried about.

Not the most powerful man in all of England, and not the self-proclaimed sociopath and definite murderer standing there with a gun to her head.

John.

John, who is still alive today, because Mary allowed it.

For the first time, the iron core of sickened rage, right there in the pit of his stomach, begins to falter.

"If I must." It would hurt John. He knows that much, defective in human sentiment or not; _oh, _it would hurt John.

But he will tell him, if needs must.

Just as he will kill Mary, if he has to.

He will.

Sherlock's gaze scatters away, searching from Mary to the dark of the world outside their flat. For a breath, everything inverts, and he can see a sniper hidden across the street. Rifle loaded in his lap. Agent Lazarus checking the scope for what must be done.

And abruptly, he is tired.

He is-

He is just so, so tired.

Sherlock slips backwards, landing hard with a jolt of pain through his shoulder that is a welcome joy. The gun doesn't slip, but he sags there in his chair and looks at the assassin across the room and his violin resting in the corner and John's wonderful jumper folded in his chair and he is _tired. _

John is, quite paradoxically, alive- because of Mary.

Sherlock will kill her, if that arrangement ever is threatened to change. They both know it.

That is enough.

For now, that is enough.

"Well?" he prods, and he watches through half-lidded eyes, one arm loosely extended and limp in expectation. "Let us get on with it, then. John really will have a conniption, if he arrives home and finds I've neglected the antibiotics after all."

* * *

I've taken care of our problem. Stand down. -SH

Is there a reason you chose to meet alone with an intelligence agent and assassin tonight, or do you just have a death wish? -MH

Former assassin -SH

The situation has been handled, so you can stick your nose back into someone else's business. -SH

Brother mine, as ever, you endeavor to cause me a stress-induced heart attack. -MH

That's not stress. Lay off the cake. -SH

And tell your fucking agent to go home because Mary and I can both see him smoking from the window and it's just embarrassing -SH

* * *

John gets back from Dublin, and Sherlock has missed him so intrinsically that he kisses him before he's all the way through the door.

"Mmph!" he squeaks, "Sherlock-!" and Sherlock kisses him a second time, and in that splitsecond considers taking apart the lock to the flat so that John can never leave him again.

"Well, I guess someone missed me?"

"Exquisitely," Sherlock purrs, and decides he might actually like kissing, as long as it makes John look like that.

"I hope it's not just because you ran out of milk," John says, but it's teasing, and with a hand in Sherlock's hair that nearly makes him come off the floor. "Or because you got into trouble again and need something else stitched?"

"Hmm. You know me, John, there was nothing excited to miss... just hung out a bit with a criminal; pointed a gun at an assassin. You know how it is."

"Oh, bugger off," John laughs, rolling his eyes, and Sherlock beams back.

It's easy enough, for Sherlock to tempt John into sitting down. Into relaxing, into not fussing at his shoulder, into liquifying into puddy in his hands, into talking about his weekend. Sherlock doesn't give a toss about the medical conference for trauma surgeons, and he only hears about every fifth word at first; every tenth, later on, after John's stopped watching him quite so closely in quiet unease and picks up speed instead.

He watches John, instead.

Memorizes the way he looks, as he talks about something that he is passionate about. Commits to his John room in the palace the exact way he walks and gestures, the way he's careful with his bad shoulder but his fingers wriggle in a way that means _happy._ The wrinkles in his shirt, the hue of his jumper, the part of his hair, the color of his eyes. He records the way John touches him, the way his fingertips feel on his bare skin; the way John looks at him, the shape of his mouth and the sound of his voice and the exact degree of the warmth of his hands.

He hasn't heard more than a word or two of what John has said, by the time the sun's gone down and they're sitting with John's feet in his lap and his jumper buried about Sherlock's hands.

He thinks about Mary, and how _close _he had come to losing this for good.

He holds John tight enough to bruise, and that night he even lets John take his shirt off and spend an hour tracing, smoothing, kissing every scar he can find, because there is nothing worse in the entire world than the gut-wrenching hollow stomach-drop of not having John.

* * *

The weeks pass.

He continues taking cases. Lestrade yells at him for running off on his own less, though that might just be because Lestrade now watches him so closely he almost never gets the chance.

He continues running experiments, mostly because John and Molly look at him particularly oddly if he doesn't. His right hand, the corresponding wrist snapped in Serbia, tremors if he pipets for too long. Or perhaps that's the lack of sleep. Regardless the reason, it has a tremor, now, a hard shudder after repetitive use, which is exactly as conducive to science as it is to music. The sleeves of his dressing gown are utterly ruined from copious stains of acid, and at one point had to hide a chemical burn from John for a week.

He continues practicing violin, when John's not there. It hurts, badly. Mrs. Hudson continues vacating the flat minutes after he starts.

He continues not sleeping.

He continues walking.

He can't stop it, actually. He's tried, now, for John, because he know John doesn't like it and John doesn't even have the first idea how often he really does it, and he simply can not. The noise in his head, the restless crawl of insects under his skin, the twitching screech of his hatefully, loathsomelyfast mind- it's hateful. It's _horrible! _It's the same feeling as the _boredom, _from before the fall, but like that feeling has taken a physical form and dosed itself on the best crack cocaine there is. The world scratching itself inside out all inside his own skull, two years of instinct and violence and blood demanding attention and if he sits still too long it'll gulp him down and destroy him.

He walks. He blocks Mycroft's number, and is getting texted from a new one within the day. Being told to go home.

He walks. Sometimes he hunts down crimes to stop, or perhaps just call in; more than once, he purposefully attracts the attention of a hapless mugger, just for the thrill of the fight.

John would hate it, but that's all right. John doesn't have to know.

He walks. And sometimes, just sometimes, he texts Mary, and he walks with her.

John wouldn't know what to make of it, but that's all right. Sherlock doesn't, either.

It doesn't happen often. Sherlock trusts her, in a bizarre sort of way, a dangerous, life-threatening, violent trust, and, well, perhaps that's it. He's addicted to danger and Mary is, at her core, dangerous, and there is simply nothing more dangerous than wondering around London in the middle of the night with the last of Moriarty's assassins. They can compare scars, so to speak. Share stories of what it's like to stitch up your own bullet wound in a hostel in Karachi, or outrun the KGB in Russia, or hitchhike with drug smugglers, and sometimes they get chips at three in the morning, and Sherlock remembers John doing the same for him and for a fraction of a second, he feels normal.

Amusing, really.

Two years ago, he would've killed himself if he'd been made _normal. _

Now, there's some pathetic, desperate part of him that wants so badly to be extraordinary again, but wants even more than that, will take _anything_ to stop being _this, _that he'll take normal.

He continues eating chips at three in the morning with an assassin, and pointedly chooses not to think about it.

John keeps asking him questions, about his time away, about the one-sided text conversation of hundreds of messages, and Sherlock keeps answering him even as his mouth feels as if it's filled with lead and his tongue swells until the words are choked around like glass. Sherlock has to switch himself off more and more, now. Coldly recounting the actions of Agent Lazarus in a calm, dissociated monologue that he can only barely hear himself.

John doesn't like it.

John smiles less.

Some nights, John doesn't even ask him anything at all.

It's one of those such nights that the Bad Question comes, John flipping disinterestedly through a mystery novel on the sofa while Sherlock checks his email at his desk. Tedious this, dull that; it's as if the denizens of London are _trying _to kill him. Sherlock sneers silently at the screen, scrolling downwards again, and is so focused that it takes him a moment (several minutes?) to realise he's been spoken to.

"John?"

The way John glances at him over the edge of his book confirms it has, in fact, been at least two minutes, since John had called his name.

"...Do you want to stop seeing me?"

Sherlock freezes.

When his brain comes back online again, it feels like his tongue is coated with dry sand. "No," he says, staring at John, and the way John looks back, wary and infinitely unhappy, flays him over a bed of broken glass.

John looks back down to his book, saying nothing more; the way he fiddles with the pages is enough to confirm that he's not even reading it. Sherlock stares silently back; can't look away, physically can not unfreeze the muscles of his neck to stare back at his computer and look away from John.

He knows there's probably other things he should be saying. Questions to ask, reassurances to give, answers to demand. But this isn't his area, it's _not, _and all Sherlock can do instead is stare back, a quake of fear in his chest so intense that he hasn't felt anything like it since Serbia.

John doesn't ask the question again. But he never quite stops looking like he did that night, either.

Sherlock keeps walking.

The weeks turn by and he just _keeps walking,_ because the stillness drives him mad not to. He sleeps when he has to, but then the nightmares start, horrible, uneasy, bone-grating nightmares of an abyss and dry-drowning and John's brain matter splattering on a bullet, dreams that leave his stomach queasy for days, and he sleeps even less after that. He doesn't eat, on those days, except when John makes him, because he can't tell John no to save his life.

Those days, he often finds himself throwing up, but that's all right. John doesn't have to know.

So Sherlock walks, and he doesn't sleep, and when he does sleep, he dreams, and whether he dreams or not, he hates himself. That's not new, at least; the hating himself. He hates every loathsome inch, with an intensity that goes to his stomach and and precision that scrapes him as completely as acid.

John isn't allowed to sleep in his old room.

Sherlock hasn't told John this. Lord, no; that'd be intolerably humiliating. But John has figured it out, in his funny little head, perhaps after Sherlock had appeared in his own bedroom for the fifth time of his own accord, and now it's just a new rule: Sherlock doesn't sleep alone.

He'd apologise for being so pathetic, if he really cared.

But having John as a permanent resident in his bed presents a whole host of other problems; a witness for nightmares, a witness for his failures to sleep, a witness for everything that he _is,_ and everything that Sherlock is is not very good, so he distracts John with sex, instead. And Sherlock is quite good at sex, he finds. In the way he tends to be quite good at everything he actually bothers to put his mind to. It's just a bit like playing the violin, he finds- one particularly giant, especially sensitive violin. He just has to learn the exact right ways to use his fingers and his mouth, the right husk of his voice, the perfect words to use, how to play off John's reactions escalate from good to _great. _

At least, Sherlock _thinks _he's good at it.

Then, one night John stops him, right as Sherlock is rolling to pull an arm around him. John stops him with a hand to his shoulder and his thumb brushing the tip of the scar that rolls over his back to his clavicle, and he stares at him in the dark, and he says, "Sherlock, stop for a second. Just. Just hang on. Please."

"...John?"

"...do you like sex, Sherlock?"

Sherlock furrows his brow. What sort of silly question is _that?_

"I-"

"You have to tell the truth," John interrupts, squeezing the shoulder, his scar again. "Yes or no, no being all- _you _about it. Do you like sex?"

"I like you."

By the way John's face falls, Sherlock knows, _somehow, _this was the wrong thing to say.

"...John," he tries again. He starts to lean forwards a second time, but John pulls back, and he doesn't _get it. _He should have lied after all? "What a silly question, John, of course I do-"

But this is apparently a graver mistake than the last, because John snatches himself away from Sherlock's hand, his eyes flashing and mouth suddenly quivering in a firm line that does something unforgivable to Sherlock's chest.

Then, John is gone.

"John? What are you-"

"Make a bloody deduction, why don't you," John snaps, already all the way upright and scratching both hands through his hair.

"You're... angry."

"I need some air," John corrects, except it's not a correction, because Sherlock can see it, plain as day: John is angry. He stalks around from what has become his side of Sherlock's bed, scowling at the door and refusing to look back at him. "Deduce what you want from that."

"Well, I certainly might struggle to, since you refuse to give me any data. What, did I forget to buy milk, again? Because I believe you knew what you were getting into when-"

"Oh, fuck you, Sherlock!"

"That is what I was just offering, wasn't it?"

Third mistake of the night.

Third time, evidently, by the way John's face instantly contorts, his eyes widening and mouth slipping open just a little, looking at if Sherlock has just slapped him...

Third time's the charm.

John slams out the door without another word.

Sherlock outlasts the silence for exactly two minutes and twenty-seven seconds, and then, he is out the door too.

* * *

"I keep making him unhappy."

"Given that this is the fifth time in three weeks we've had this conversation at three in the morning, I should think the great Sherlock Holmes should be able to deduce the cause."

Sherlock shivers and scowls and glares, his chin tucked into his scarf and his shoulders hunched in as much of a protective curl as he could get, and keeps walking.

"It's not three in the morning," is all he can think to say. "It's 1:57."

Mary grins, her mouth half-hidden by a cup of horrendous tea, because there is no other tea to be bought on the streets of London at 1:57 AM, and keeps walking with him.

That's the problem with this, isn't it?

The great Sherlock Holmes can deduce the entire world over. But he is utterly useless when handed human sentiment, and that's what this is.

John is unhappy with him. John is disappointed with him. John no longer finds him remarkable. John is constantly, _constantly, _sad.

And it's always his fault.

"I'm doing it all wrong," he mutters, shoving his hands deeper, still, into his pockets. "And there's not exactly a google search for how-to-relationship for dysfunctional high-functioning sociopaths. I know. I've checked."

"And I'm sure that was one lonely night on google."

Sherlock glares out of the corner of his eye, but Mary only sighs back, her smile fading and her tea still dwindling. "Have you ever tried asking John, why he's so unhappy?"

"I _know _why he's unhappy. I am the common denominator in every single cause of suffering that has occurred in John's life since we first met. He's unhappy because of _me, _Mary; I know the cause perfectly well, thank you, I just-"

He cuts himself off with a sharp breath, shaking his head again and throat closing under the denial of it. With another shake of his head, Sherlock just looks away, still hunched and shivering, and pulls off the strongest sulk that he can.

The problem is himself.

Removing himself, however-

Well, that won't work. Been there, done that; thank you, Moriarty, thank you, 2012.

That leaves only one solution: _fixing _himself.

That being the million dollar question that Sherlock can not answer. That Sherlock had once believed that John would never, ever ask of him- and that was why he'd first liked him so much in the first place. Because he was Sherlock-the-Marvel, to John- not and never Sherlock-the-freak-who-needs-fixing.

He'd do it for John, too, is the thing. John is the very first person that Sherlock has been willing to change who he is for.

Just because he's willing doesn't mean he knows how to do it.

"You know something, Sherlock?"

"Yes, I do. Quite a bit more than anyone else on this street, I'd imagine."

"I think you should just ask John what on earth the matter is."

"What _for_? So I have to see him tell me to my face that I am and always have been everything that is-"

"Because, Sherlock, John is _your _partner, and yet he's home alone right now, _once again, _while you continue speaking to his ex-girlfriend about everything that's bothering you more than you've ever spoken to him. His ex-girlfriend, by the way, whom you've known for all of twenty minutes, and still might just be planning to kill you."

There's another short, splintering silence.

"Just saying," Mary points out again. "I'd be feeling a wee bit neglected if I were him, too."

Sherlock scoffs under his breath, and does not reply.

They turn around another corner together, and Sherlock's hands shake so badly in his pockets that he doesn't know how to stop it.

When was the last time he slept? Not three days ago, certainly. It's been too long, again, he keeps ignoring that he has to, the second he closes his eyes he'll wake up on the run in Austria or handcuffed in a basement in China or _John's in danger, _he's so _tired, _he can't understand it, can't make his brain _work..._

_I can't keep doing this. _

_I CAN'T._

"Perhaps I shouldn't have come back at all." The words blurt out, sinfully stupid and childish, but he pictures it and is that really so bad? If Sherlock was still on the run, a fading MI6 phantom until he got shot or decapitated or bled out under a full moon; yes, he could've done that. Isn't that what his _problem _is, that he's been on the run for so long he doesn't know how to stop? And John- well, John would've been fine, wouldn't he? Of course he would have, he'd just been ready to move on when Sherlock had come back, he'd probably have been happy by now, but that was gone and ruined, of course, too late for that-

"I thought you were supposed to be _smart," _Mary laughs, rolling her eyes as if Sherlock has just proclaimed two plus two equaled five. "What on earth ever gave you such a stupid idea as that? I know John didn't."

"John's an idiot. He doesn't know what's best."

"And neither, apparently, do you."

Sherlock glares again, but perhaps it lacks heat, because Mary just sighs and nudges him with an elbow, her mouth still quirked into a long-suffering smile that reminds him, just a little, of John. "You really don't know what you're doing, do you?"

"Oh, what _gave it away."_

Mary grins, as if spitting vitriol is indeed a smile-worthy event. "You're really going to break John's patience one of these days, Sherlock, and I don't even blame him."

"I tend to drive most people into a homicidal rage upon our first conversation. Quite frankly, I'm stunned John's stuck around this long."

"Yeah? So am I!" Mary rolls her eyes again, though it's a bit teasing, this time, and Sherlock finds himself following her to the nearest bench to sit down. "You don't tell him _anything, _Sherlock. You didn't back then and you're not now. There's... really only so much of that that a person can take."

And somehow, they're no longer talking about just tonight.

Something tight clenches in his chest, weeding around his heart like a physical nest of vines he can feel knotting in his stomach. It's in his throat, in his lungs, in his mouth, and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

"I tried to tell him."

Mary is silent.

And Sherlock buries his face in his hands, clutching at his hair, at his stupid, stupid brain, the words so stuck in his throat, and he says it again.

"I tried to tell John. On... on the roof." Another ragged silence; he pants it in, breathing in the quiet between them until it infects him in his lungs. "I told him it was a magic trick. I told him it was just a magic trick. It wasn't part of the plan, I wasn't meant to risk it, but-"

But John had sounded so... shattered. So disbelieving. So-

So _scared._

John had sounded so scared, and he'd looked up at Sherlock and told him _no _in a voice that refused to yield, told him _I believe in Sherlock Holmes, _and that- Sherlock had been ready for anything, that day on the rooftop, but John had said that, and it had slammed his breath away. No one had ever, _ever_ had faith in him. Not like that. There'd been endless faith in his ability to be smart, of course, to be inhumanly intelligent, to be perceptive, to solve cases, but never _once _had anyone had had faith in him to be _good._

Not like John Watson.

And John had said that, that terrible thing, and his words had caught in his throat, and it had just come out. _It's just a magic trick, John. Listen to me. Hear what I'm saying. It's just a magic trick. No, don't look at me like that, don't sound like that, please, it's just a magic trick, it's only a magic trick._

In the end, of course, John hadn't listened. Not really.

Sherlock supposed that watching his head crack into the pavement, blood from his brain leak through his hair, and feeling the absence of a heart beat under his hands, meant much more than a few pretty words on the phone.

"Does John know?" Mary asks quietly. "That you tried to tell him?"

Sherlock shakes his head so hard he nearly chokes on the laugh. "No. God, no. Dreadful idea; no, no. He'd blame himself, then, for not hearing me. Which he _should have, _mind," he snaps, "I could hardly spell it out on a postcard, but..."

But of course it's his fault. Of course it is _all _his fault.

He can't have John blame himself for not listening, when it's Sherlock's, for not speaking louder.

He could have told him. He could have told him, so many times, so many, many times. He could have, and he didn't.

It's all his fault.

"If you had told him," Mary says, after a while. "Then you know I would've killed him, Sherlock."

There's another incandescent flicker in his chest.

Mary's gaze falls away, her eyes lowering towards the pavement in a silent apology that will never be enough. There's still agony collecting in his lungs, a scratching under his skin that never goes away, but Mary looks away and Sherlock buries his face back in his hands and there's nothing more to say.

As if on cue, a car backfires.

For the first time in weeks, he isn't the only one to flinch.

There's a pattern of thunderous silence; Sherlock tensed, a knife in the palm of his hand and heart hammering in the space of his chest, Mary tenser, frozen mid-stride and a hand frozen mid-way to her ankle. Illegal firearm, his mind races; small caliber, one-handed grip, more bark than bite but in her hands she'd only need one shot.

There's another beat of shared silence. Mary stares at him, and Sherlock stares at her, cups of tea rolling, spilled, and ruined on the pavement, and it's as ridiculous as it is embarrassing.

Sherlock starts giggling first, which prompts Mary's grim smile to shift into laughter as well, and they stand there laughing together, one former assassin and one whatever the bloody _hell _he is alone on a London sidewalk in the middle of the night laughing, and Sherlock remembers giggling at a crime scene with John and the empty space in his chest hurts and hurts and hurts until he's forgotten how to breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter, in which Sherlock and John finally talk for real. It's about halfway written, so hopefully it'll be up soon!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! As always, feedback is always welcome and appreciated! <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! The other updates have taken so long I figured I'd get this one up a little early. 
> 
> I don't want to say this is the end for this series, because I never imagined it having a third part at all, but at this point I really don't even know what I'd write for a fourth. So, for now, the texting series is complete. Thanks to everyone who read along the way, and I hope you all enjoyed!!! <3
> 
> (Edit: the whole series has now been edited, because I was an absolute idiot and wrote Sherlock in Siberia instead of Serbia. *headdesk*)

Things come to a head, because of course, they simply must, when Sherlock has been back in London for five months.

Far more than enough time for him to have settled back in. Some of the aches and pains, finally fading. A status quo reached, a new arrangement settled.

He's fine, of course. He's always been fine, but here, now, five months back home, he simply _must be _fine. There is no reason for him not to be, after all.

It's been more than long enough of this nonsense.

And then, because they simply must, things come to a head.

* * *

It's at dinner. Chinese takeout, because Sherlock can stomach the smell of it again, isn't that good, isn't that telling, he's fine, he's fine, he's _fine._

At first, Sherlock thinks it's to be one of the nights in which John does not interrogate him. In which the text messages don't come out, and John doesn't sit and watch, infinitely sad, as Sherlock retreats into his palace and recounts the mission file, complete with redactions and codenames and all. Oh, there is something on his mind, clearly, gaze often averting a little too quickly, a finger tapping restlessly on his leg as they eat over something that's close to loathsome _small talk, _but the text messages don't come out.

Not until the takeout containers have been binned, and the tea has been poured, and Sherlock is back in his armchair, glaring at his unhappy lack of emails of interest in what has become a comfortable silence.

Then, it comes.

"I'm going to ask you something, Sherlock."

"A redundant statement, surely."

"And it's a yes or no question. You don't have to answer with anything more than that. And- and I'd really like it if you didn't get worked up over it. Yes or no, and then we can drop it and do anything else that you want for the rest of the night."

"Well, that's certainly alarmist, don't you think, John?" Sherlock signs his latest email and pointedly continues to ignore the doctor, not watching him even as he's coming to stand right by his desk and watch him with a look that he knows, full well, he will not like. "Come, now; you must have been taught to broach a delicate topic better than _this."_

But John doesn't rise to the bait, and that's another sign that Sherlock is not to like what is coming.

"Yes or no, Sherlock- that's all: is it okay if I ask you about these messages?"

The phone is back in his hand, again. The conversation, already called up: the message, already selected.

_I'm coming home, John. -SH_

Sherlock stares.

_I'm coming home, John. -SH_

Oh.

"Yes or no, Sherlock. Remember?" John prompts gently.

He says nothing.

A gear gets jolted, in his head. Yanked out of where it's been stuttered to a frozen halt. System restart. Answer.

"Yes," he says.

His voice comes out strange to his own ears, as if heard from far away, a mouth that is not his own forming the word.

There's another dry, dusty silence. He can taste it, there in his throat.

"...is it okay if I ask you about them now?"

Dusty, grating silence again. Sand in his throat, hard-drive glitched again, frozen right on the login screen.

There's a million words behind his tongue, and somehow, a simple _yes or no _is now utterly and completely beyond him.

Yes or no.

And he can't say no to John, then, can he?

Never can say no to John.

John waits, bless him. Doesn't assume the pitiful silence means it either way, just quietly stands beside him and waits even as the seconds pass into a minute and then two, and Sherlock's mouth is still shut and the words stuck to him dry fudge.

It's counting on four minutes, John still standing wordless beside him, no expectation or demands present in the slightest, when Sherlock opens his mouth, and he says, "No."

He blinks.

No.

_No._

He'd said... no.

Blinks again.

Was that what he'd wanted to say?

_No._

His back itches.

"Okay," John says, easily, as if it's the easiest thing in the world. An inhale rocks through gritted teeth, shocking his stomach with a deep crack in his throat, but John raises his hand and shakes his head and is more patient than Sherlock has ever had any right to ever expect. "Hey, no. Don't do that. Remember, I said _don't _get worked up, yeah?"

Sherlock tenses, a corded muscle in his neck twitching almost to a knot, but John does not touch him, only keeps his hands raised in the universal gesture for peace and his face set in the most disarming smile he's ever seen. "All right. We won't talk about this anymore until you say it's okay. Okay. That's fine." He jabs a thumb over his shoulder and the phone is slipped away in the same motion, the conversation vanishing from Sherlock's hand just as John does, just a moment later, retreating back to his chair without so much as a single invasive, unwelcome touch at his shoulder or hair. "Crap telly okay? I think there's a climate change debate on- you love yelling at those..."

John continues on, bustles about, fusses. It's white noise, nothing but white noise, and Sherlock turns the dial down to reduce it to static.

His laptop screen blurs to nothing in front of him. His back itches, his shoulders ache, and the skin about his wrists crawls so sharply it takes everything he has not to scratch it raw.

Three days since he last slept.

He opens his mouth, and it comes out.

"Serbia," he says.

John doesn't say anything. Somewhere, in the back of his head, far, far away, he's rather sure he hears the TV turn back off.

He rolls his eyes, shoving the TV and everything TV-related into the white noise column as well, and keeps his gaze very firmly off of John. A breath later, and his laptop is firmly shut, hugged to his chest in a little sleeve of warmth as he tugs his knees up and curls into the snuggest ball that he can.

_"Neuf semaines," _he says. _"J'ai fait une erreur. J'ai ete stupide."_

John says nothing. Sherlock's wrists itch like mad.

_"Mycroft isgelbejo mane. Karta pabegau, bet jie mane pagavo ir jsitikino, kad daugiau nebeisbegisu. Jis padare, tik laiku. As savaite, nemiegojau."_

The quiet in the flat is so loud it's suffocating.

_"Ich habe ihnen nichts erzahlt. Ich schrie und bat sie aufzuhoren und weinte und es war erbarmlich. Aber ich schwore, ich habe ihnen nie ein einziges Wort daruber gesagt, was sie wissen wollten."_

Why is he doing this?

Why, why, _why _is he doing this? What is _wrong _with him?

"_Me... lastiman."_

It's quiet, for a bit. Sherlock thinks it is, anyway; his ears are muffled and tongue leaden. John's probably staring at him, he doesn't really care, and in the dusty, suffocating stillness that expands in the flat, his wrists are chafed and his back hurts and Sherlock now regrets every minute of this night.

He wants to stalk to his room and slam the door.

He stalks across the room, instead, reforming his protective ball on the sofa: head at the end, back to the room, knees pulled as tightly to his chest as they could get. Which was quite humiliating and pitiful, if he really stopped to think about it, so he wouldn't stop to think about it, and would instead stay curled up just like this instead.

_Serbia._

_Nine weeks. I made a mistake. I was stupid._

_Mycroft saved me. I escaped once, but they caught me and made sure I wouldn't escape again._ _He made it, just in time. I hadn't slept in a week._

_I didn't tell them anything. I screamed, and I begged them to stop, and I cried, and it was pitiful. But I swear, I never told them a single word of what they wanted to know._

_They... hurt me._

Ridiculous. Stupid, really- that such a short statement of simple fact can make him feel like _this._

Stupid.

The TV turns back on, after a time. The volume soft enough that it still serves as nothing more than white noise, a few emphatic words snatched out of the fuzz muffled around him. Louder than that is the creak of the chair, then the footsteps, and then, the solid weight of John sitting down carefully beside him.

Sherlock tenses again. But John still does not make to touch him.

"Please don't shut me out," he murmurs, the words coming earnest and sincere. "You don't have to talk about it, whatever's going on in that giant head of yours, but please just... don't shut me out. Think about something else. Don't go hide in your room alone. Stay here, and- and maybe don't use so many patches you give yourself nicotine poisoning."

It's meant to be a joke, that last bit. Probably. His voice sounds light and carefully teasing, like a joke.

It's not a joke. Sherlock, at the moment, wants nothing more than to turn his brain _off- _not work it up with the whipcrack of nicotine.

John won't let him use heroin, though, and opioids are the only trick he has ever found to reliably shut his brain down, so he does certainly seem to be stuck.

He counts his breaths instead, the deep inhale that rasps in his throat, that reminds him of waterboarding and fingers squeezing to his neck, and John never makes him talk, never makes him unfurl, and never makes him touch, and that's enough.

It has to be enough.

* * *

He wakes up drowning on nothing but air, his knuckles aching with the sting of a punch already thrown, and John.

John sprawled on the floor, up on just one elbow with a hand clutched to a bleeding lip, and staring up at Sherlock with wide, wounded eyes.

And that's it.

He's done.

* * *

_11:43_

_Are you coming back any time soon?_

_11:44_

_I'm not mad at you, if that's what's the matter, and I know you might just need to be alone, but I'd appreciate an answer. I'm worried._

_12:10_

_I guess that's a no._

_12:45_

_I'm worried, Sherlock. Tell me that you're okay. _

_12:56_

_Are you getting these? Don't make me call Mycroft. I don't care what you're doing or if you don't want to come home now but just let me know that you're not hurt._

_2:10_

_You fucking wanker tell me what's going on_

_2:11_

_You have to stop doing this to me_

_I can't take being left in the dark anymo_r_e_

_What more am I supposed to do_

_2:12_

_You don't have to talk, but I'm here if you want to. You don't have to come home but I'm here if you do. You don't have to do anything and all I'm fucking asking in return is for you to tell me if you're okay_

_ofc you're not okay_

_physically hurt, are you physically hurt? _

_fucking answer me Sherlock_

_4:34_

_I'm going out._

_If you were planning on coming back any time soon._

_6:00_

_Guess you weren't._

_6:53_

_Sherlock fucking Holmes tell me where you are right now_

_6:54 _

_You can't blow me off again, you can't keep secrets and expect me to be okay with that_

_Answer me you prick_

_Do you even care? Acting like this hurts me, too. Does that even matter to you?_

_Damn it don't make me call Mycroft_

_7:27_

_Fuck off. If you're okay and you're reading these and choosing not to answer, then just fuck off. _

_7:40 _

_Sod this_

_Fucking sod this_

_I'm going for a drink. If you need help, you can call Mycroft or Greg. I'll be home tomorrow if you want to talk._

_7:44_

_Don't break your sobriety for me. -SH_

_7:46_

_Where are you_

_Are you okay_

_7:47_

_I'm not hurt. -SH_

_7:52_

_I don't know what's wrong with me. -SH_

_7:55_

_Will you tell me where you are?_

_8:15_

_Bart's. -SH_

* * *

The cab arrives at Bart's a little over twenty minutes, after Sherlock has turned his phone off.

Not in a hurry, then.

The door to the roof, however, slams open not three minutes after the cab had arrived.

_Massive _hurry, then.

"Get down from there," John croaks, croaks when he's still nothing but a black silhouette on the London skyline outlined in the bright light of the doorway and his voice a hoarse, ravaged croak. Oh, he's _terrified_. "G-get- Sherlock Holmes, get t-the _fuck- _down from-"

John's breathing so hard and fast, each gasp cut desperate through his attempt at speech- must have sprinted up all four flights of stairs- it takes even Sherlock a moment to deduce just what on earth is the matter. When it does click, he rolls his eyes, though it'll never be seen in the dark, and shifts back around to glare over the skyline instead.

"I'm _not- kidding!_ Sh- Sherlock-"

"And I'm not _jumping, _John. Obviously," he sighs, swinging his legs in the breeze. "There's no need to be so melodramatic."

John's gasps of breath are still so loud they scratch him inside out even from all the way across the rooftop.

"I don't care- I don't- _care," _John gasps, high-pitched and there's no question about it, now, _hysterical. _He stumbles, feet scratching against the rooftop, halfway to Sherlock and frozen in place, as if he dares to go no further. The look on his face is as if he's about to throw up. "Get down from- Sherlock do it now, I don't care- _get off the fucking ledge- _I swear to god I'll kill you- myself- _Sherlock, get down from there-"_

In the end, the terror reminds him just a little too much of a phone call, held right here on this ledge, approaching on three years ago, now.

In the end, John sounds as if he is scared to death, about to cry, and ready to hit something all at once, and silly or not, Sherlock doesn't want John to feel any of those things, ever again.

He takes a deep breath, and swings himself around so he's sitting with his feet on solid rooftop instead of open air.

There's a fractured moment of silence.

John, already red-faced, flushes straight to scarlet.

"Get up. Get- get _up! _You-" His voice cracks and he stalks across the rooftop, grabbing him by the collar of the coat he'd slept in the night before. Sherlock's hauled up and away, shoved violently away from the ledge in a way that feels like three years and coming, as if John has been wanting to drag him off this very ledge for _three years _and now something's cracked and he's not going to hold back.

He sees the punch coming before it's thrown. Sees it in the tightness of John's jaw and the grey-green pallor of his face and the tremors shuddering through him from head to toe.

Sees it in the fist shaking at his side, and the split lip from Sherlock's own hand.

He settles his weight back on his heels, and rolls with the punch.

It barely hurts, and he wishes it hurt more.

"Well?" Sherlock prods. "Do you feel better?"

John's face contorts again, hysteria and despair and anguish and sentiment, and he laughs what is probably the most miserable sound Sherlock has ever heard. "You're joking, now? You think this is all some kind of bloody joke?"

"...I'm not joking. I'm asking if that helped."

John does not answer, does nothing but fix him with that terrible stare, and Sherlock spreads his arms, a bit, a convenient and open target. Whatever it is that John's thinking, Sherlock really is not joking. "You're free to do it again, if you're so inclined. If it helps- you're quite entitled, John. I'll be fine." _I deserve it. _

_After everything I've done to you, I deserve it. _

But John's face- oh. No. John's face, it does that funny little thing again, that twist that makes something deep in Sherlock's chest hurt, and his fists drop to his sides and he stares back as if Sherlock is the one who has just punched him. "N- _no," _he chokes, deflated and anguished all at once. "No, fuck you, it didn't help, and frankly it'd be bad if it did, and you know what else doesn't help? Having my boyfriend tell me that I have the right to _hit him!"_

"Don't you?"

"What the hell- _no_! No, you idiot! You-" John turns away, clenching his fingers together, and Sherlock's gone and done it again, apparently; he's even more upset than before. "What is all of this; because you had a nightmare?! That's it?! You had a nightmare, knocked me around a bit on accident, mind, and now you're hiding on a rooftop all day and asking me to hit you? What the hell is wrong with you, Sherlock?!"

_"I don't know!" _

It takes a moment, for John to flinch back. For his panting to stutter and blazing eyes to blink, the rage wilting back in place of something softer. Something entirely more unbearable.

Sherlock refuses to look, and instead, just drops back to his heels to sit once again against the ledge.

His back to it, this time, instead of with his feet hanging off it.

No need to alarm John.

Again.

Another moment passes in complete silence. Sherlock, irritably, returns his focus to his wrists: still faintly scarred, in the right light, all the way around, and oversensitive to the point that even his tight sleeves can sometimes be too much. Psychosomatic, of course, and isn't that just _funny._

He scratches the scars, and it does know nothing to stop his skin from crawling.

John is very quiet, when he draws to join him down on the roof. Sherlock won't look at him- can't- but he feels John's gaze on him, hears the less miserably tense gasp of his breaths, and suddenly, this isn't just about tonight anymore.

"That's what you said in your text, too," John says carefully. "You didn't know what was wrong with you."

"Yes."

"But... you know that something is."

Sherlock scratches harder, and all but against his will, his eyes squeeze shut.

"...Sherlock..."

And, as John has given him so much practice with, as of late-

Sherlock talks.

"There is no reason for anything to be wrong with me. I am not injured, physically ill, or otherwise incapacitated. My routine is nearly identical to the one I maintained two years ago with little issue." He scratches harder, now at the narrow jut of bone in the radius, fingernails digging into the memory of the bite of handcuffs and restraints. If he could, he'd tear his skin _off. _"You have been unfailingly patient, even as I have been increasingly unreasonable. You have allowed for far more eccentricities and ridiculous behaviours than any one person should have to, after already enduring tragedy on my account for longer than can possibly be fair. There is nothing more I have the right to ask for, and nothing more that I can think of to request that you have not already offered freely."

_And something's still wrong._

_Something is still very, very wrong with me._

John's quiet, for a moment. Sherlock can do nothing but scratch harder.

At this rate, he's going to wear the skin open to draw blood. It's going to make him feel worse- even more out of control, even more of a humiliated wreck, even more _wrong._

He scratches even harder.

"Do you think you could tell me what's wrong?"

Sherlock huffs through clenched teeth. Has John gone _deaf, _doesn't he _listen?!_ "I've told you, I don't-"

"I'm a doctor. This is a hospital. You say something's wrong. Let's... let's talk through it, then. You tell me your symptoms, and I'll tell you what I think is wrong."

Sherlock scoffs. Or he tries to, but it comes out a little too vehement, and John's still too patient to be sane, and-

And it's absurd.

But it's absurd in a bit not good sort of way, in a way that reminds him of giggling at crime scenes and dim sum with a shock blanket in his lap, and it's _John. _Doesn't he trust John? Doesn't John so often manage to do _good, _when Sherlock's drowning in his own brain, and John's the one to pull him out?

Doesn't he trust John?

He'd trusted John two years ago, on this very rooftop. He'd trusted him, and loved him enough to step off the edge.

Surely he trusted him enough now to take this lunge.

"I can't sleep."

John breathes deeply, and this, here- it is the end of everything.

No longer Sherlock the marvel. No longer fantastic, remarkable, brilliant, amazing.

He's defective, and now, John knows it.

He can never take this back.

"Insomnia, or nightmares?"

"...Neither. Both. I- I don't know."

"Sherlock."

"I-" He inhales, shivering in the depths of his coat, and ducks his head deeper into his scarf. "Both. I have both. But I... don't want to. I don't want to sleep. That's why I don't."

"Because of the nightmares?"

It's non-judgmental, and it's not pitying, and that's the only reason why Sherlock can answer at all. "Because it's not safe," he mutters, the words coming low and muffled into his scarf, which is true enough, "Because I have things to do, because I- can't," which is closer but still doesn't accurately encapsulate it, but he doesn't have any words that will.

"Okay," John says calmly. _God, thank you, John, thank you. _"You're eating less, too. Loss of appetite, or nausea? Something else?"

"Both. I. Um." His fingers wring together, then separate, scratching again. He can't _stand it. _"Perhaps due to stress. I tested my blood three weeks ago, and found elevated levels of cortisol."

"You- of course you did." John chuckles a little, a faint breath of amusement and nothing more, a sound that sounds like John is smiling; god, he's missed it.

There's a moment of silence, and Sherlock tenses for the question that's coming next; _what do you have to be so stressed about?, _because he doesn't _fucking know _and that's the _problem._ That's what is wrong, that is _exactly _what is wrong, and he tenses and he scratches and scratches and scratches, and there's silence and just for a moment he thinks this is it. He's tested John's patience too far and John is going to leave him here sitting alone on this dammed roof.

Then, John breathes, and moves on.

"Any pain? No, sorry, scratch that- from what I've seen, I know you have to have some. But is there any that's severe, unexplained, or somehow unusual? Anything that you might think is a cause for concern?"

It's Sherlock's turn to blink.

Just like that.

He doesn't ask the question that they both know he can't answer. He just- he moves on.

Something burns in his throat, and it is abruptly all very, very close to being too much.

"...No. Not that I- that is to say- no. No."

John grins a little, a faint flicker of warmth in the darkness. "Knowing your pain tolerance, I think I'm just going to table that question for now, until I can give you a more thorough run-down. All right, then. ...Any flashbacks?"

"No."

"That's-" he laughs quietly, something uncomfortable about it, and curls his hands in his lap, seemingly as if for want of something better to do with them. "Okay, bear with me, for a second, because this is my area of expertise and not yours. Flashbacks lie along a sort of continuum, Sherlock. They can be a full loss of reality and your surroundings, but they don't have to be. Sometimes it's only intrusive sensations, like phantom pain, or even just emotional distress without the physical- you re-experience what it felt like, even if you still see and know exactly where you are."

John's staring at his hands, now.

Where he's been scratching miserably at his wrists for minutes straight, tearing at the scars and the bone-deep bite of the feeling of handcuffs locking his arms behind his back.

"It's either that," John points out, with a sardonic sort of smile, "or Excoriation Disorder. Skin picking. Which you don't really fit the profile for. Or an obsessive compulsive tic, or something to do with anxiety. Which it might well be. So- yeah."

Heat rushes to Sherlock's face, and he tears his hands apart, one by one. His wrists still itch, or maybe they just sting, now, both of them scraped with red furrows, and his back is even more intolerable. "I do not have PTSD, or OCD, or any other such- _disorder._ So if that's what this is about, if you're just slapping some crock of a diagnosis on me so you can ship me off to some bloody_ therapist_, you can piss off, _John-"_

"I didn't diagnosis you with anything, Sherlock. I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not qualified to give you any sort of label; I'm just listing symptoms, here. Anything else you'd like to add?"

Sherlock snarls through gritted teeth, squirming away in what he wishes he had the energy to turn into a regular strop. He shoves upright so he can sit back on the ledge again, sloping with his elbows on his knees and feet still digging into the gravel, glowering away with all the strength he can muster.

John flinches hard, and he knows it's not because of his refusal to answer.

"Well, if you're done, then... I think I'm going to add some of what I've noticed on my own."

Sherlock picks at his fingers instead, and still refuses to look at him or say so much of a single word.

"I know that you haven't been sleeping. I know that because I saw the reminder on your phone."

"You saw the-"

"Not like that," John sighs, with a hard edge to it. "You got a few texts this morning, and you were actually _sleeping, _for once, so I wanted to shut your phone up and make sure the texts weren't anything that couldn't be ignored. I was just turning it off when the notification popped up asking if you'd slept. Wasn't that hard to look into it and see you had it set for every three days."

Oh, just _wonderful. _"So you've been snooping, then," Sherlock mutters, tugging his coat tighter. He's not actually offended- far from it. Good for John, being clever, like that, good John- but surely it won't do to encourage John to continue sneaking through his phone.

"Yeah, I suppose I was, Sherlock- and good thing I did, because apparently your phone knows you better than I do." John's glaring, now, counting off on his fingers as Sherlock scowls at the gravel beneath his toes, wondering if he might somehow be able to disappear into it. "Mycroft texts you almost every night telling you to _come home, _apparently, so I guess you really weren't _out on a case _as much as you claimed-"

"Now, wait just a moment, _Mycroft _is-"

"And you're always texting _Mary_, of all people, don't even ask me what the hell _that's _all about-" He throws a hand up, shaking his head in bewilderment. "Let's face it, I've never had a clue what's going on in your head, and now apparently my ex-girlfriend has a better idea than I do."

Sherlock hauls himself away, still tucked deeper into his coat and now bristling all but inside out. "As ever, you dedicate your unused and vacant mind to the task, and come to a stunningly wrong conclusion. One does wonder how you manage to dress yourself in the morning."

"Oh, ta."

John doesn't go on for a moment after that, and Sherlock lets his focus roll away, freezing in the night and desperately unwilling for this to continue on at all. John is right, of course. About _everything, _every deduction that he'd drawn, every conclusion that he'd put together. A few minutes with his phone, and everything's now set to fall apart.

He should probably be thankful that John just didn't find the calorie tracker app to detail exactly how little he really had been eating.

Should be.

Sherlock watches over the edge of the city, the traffic dwindling five stories below, the flicker of lights that stretch for miles. The London skyline is distinctive, recognisable even from the scraps of a cheap postcard, but at this time of night it's the same as any other midnight city around the world. Lima, Beijing, Moscow.

When it really comes down to it, it all feels the same.

"You should go back," he mutters, watching to the pavement of the sidewalk, so far below. "I don't even know why I asked you to come... lapse of judgment, I suppose. You clearly don't want to be here."

John stares sharply back up at him. It's too dark and too late and Sherlock is too tired to read his face, but he's only given just a moment, anyway, before John just shakes his head and reels him in by the hand. "Come here, you- magnificent _idiot,_" and Sherlock finds himself shivering against John's side as this is Baker Street. "You stupid man. Is that what you've been thinking this whole time?"

"I'm not stupid." But there's no fire in it, and John is warm and close, and before he quite knows what's happening his face is half-hidden in John's shoulder, an arm around him and fingers in his hair, and all he wants is for it to be this simple.

He wants this to chase it all away, and it's not. He wants this to engender a sense of normalcy, of safety, and he wants to wrap himself in it like a warm blanket and never let it go. If that meant never letting John go, then, well, John wouldn't be allowed to go.

Except it's not _working._

"Sherlock," John tells him, his voice near his ear. "I want to be here as much as I ever have. Because you're still you, you idiot. You're just as remarkable and fascinating and stark raving mad as the day I met you... even if it might not still feel like it."

"You asked me one question about Serbia and twenty four hours later I'm still-" He inhales deeply, and is absolutely _disgusted _with himself when it shakes and is almost wet. "Mad, maybe, and fascinating, perhaps, the way Anderson's staggering incompetence is, but-"

"You are the biggest idiot in the world. You are- you manage to be so smart and so _stupid _all at once; I don't understand it, Sherlock." He kisses his hair, then his forehead, then his ear; any part of him that he can reach, with Sherlock's face still hidden, and the hand clutching his shoulder digs so tightly he can feel the scrape of his nails, one by one. "I love you. In case you somehow accidentally stored that with the sun, and deleted it."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Mmm," John sighs fondly, head still leaning against his hair. "Want to explain where you got the ridiculous impression that I didn't want to be here, then?"

"Don't be _ridiculous_, John," Sherlock snaps again, glaring back out of the corner of his eye. He gets a face full of jumper, and little else. "You are clearly unhappy, the present moment notwithstanding. In fact, you should go back to Baker Street, and not come back, because it is by now quite evident that nearly all I am capable of is making you unhappy."

"Has it ever bloody occurred to you, in that huge and ridiculous brain of yours, that the _reason _I'm so unhappy is because I know that _you _are, and that nothing I'm doing is helping?"

Sherlock keeps his mouth shut. Which, as it turns out, is the right thing to do, because John is only just getting started.

"And- I mean, _Christ, _Sherlock!" John's foot scrapes against the roof, an irritating scratch this way and that, and the hold around his shoulder finally loosens just enough for Sherlock to pull back away and off of John. "Did it _really _never occur to you, not even once, that maybe I just _might _know something about what it's like, to have difficulty coming back? To have trouble adjusting to being home?"

"It's not the same."

"Of course it's not the same!" John cries, and he's laughing, now, a hysterical bark of laughter that isn't the slightest bit funny. "It wouldn't have been the same even if you were an adrenaline junkie doctor who went to Afghanistan, you bloody idiot; it's not the _same _for anyone, but maybe I might know a little bit about what it's like, about what you're going through? I don't know, I _was_ about this close to losing it when you met me, gave myself a fucking limp and tremor I was so out of my mind- but sure, what the hell would I know about it?!"

Sherlock hates this.

Sherlock wants to smoke another cigarette, and regrets smoking the four he did earlier today. Or bugger that; he wants a hit of something even stronger, the mind-blowing, glorious distraction, and never mind what John has to say about it. He wants this conversation to have never happened.

He wants off this damn roof.

His hands dig back into his deep pockets, and he shoves himself back up to sit on the ledge instead, and, once again, refuses to so much as look at John. Irritating, unhappy, bristling, _right _John.

John soon returns to his side. Not entirely; he won't sit on the ledge with him, won't so much as touch it- an aversion to heights that Sherlock has noticed before, but somehow failed to put two and two together until now. John sits down instead, leaning his head to Sherlock's knee, hand to his foot.

It is one of the strangest ways John has ever touched him. He still doesn't have it in him to say no.

And that is how, for the first time, _John _talks.

"When I got home. I was... you saw me, Sherlock. Hell, you had me figured all out within two minutes of meeting me. I was miserable, probably depressed, and thought I was going crazy. I had no idea what I was going to do, and if you hadn't- if I hadn't met you, met this bloody brilliant madman who gave me a warzone back... I don't know if I'd still be here."

It's nothing Sherlock doesn't already know, of course. It's nothing he hasn't already deduced for himself.

His heart still gives a poisonous lurch, right there in his chest, and the next time he breathes in it feels thick and shaky, like something is coming apart inside him.

"And you know what the worst part of it actually was?" John glances up at him, head turned back just a little, still leaning against the fall of his coat. "I'd survived getting shot. I'd survived watching kids die in my arms, getting shot at while running an impromptu operating room on the desert floor, hell, I survived a bloody war. I'd have gone back in a second if I could. I survived all of that. But what I couldn't survive was coming home." He lets loose a weak laugh, shoulders a slumped, defeated line, smile too miserable to bear. "Something was wrong with me when it shouldn't have been. I couldn't understand how I'd survived everything else only to fall apart when nothing was even _wrong."_

There's a cold, detached sort moment of silence.

It's not the _SAME_, Sherlock wants to snarl, or perhaps shout. It's not; it can't be. Because he is better than that; doesn't John know that, by now? He is not so ordinary, so unremarkable, as to brutalized by his own mind. He builds palaces, with his mind, composes symphonies, deconstructs a world of criminality- he is one in a million; it is impossible, it is baffling that he would fall prey to something so- _stupid_. Surely there is another answer, except he has been looking for that answer for months, now, and it's not there, and John is up and pacing now and mad at him, and Sherlock can do nothing but let him go because he doesn't know what he's meant to say.

It's not the same, except, with every single word that John says, it _is._

"...you've never said any of this before," Sherlock finally replies.

He's cold, still, and is only beginning to realise it might have nothing to do with the temperature.

John barks out another laugh, rolling his eyes as if Sherlock is an idiot. "Yeah, and I guess we're similar like that, aren't we, you madman." He reaches up to tug gently at his hand, again trying to coax him off the ledge, closer to him, to _home. _"I'd just moved in with this brilliant, amazing guy, smarter than anyone in the bloody world, this- bloody _marvel _who wasn't just amazing but made everything around him amazing, too. Maybe I was a little in love with you back then, I don't know, but there you were, being remarkable and brilliant, and all I could think was that if you saw how normal I really was, how defective, you'd get bored and take all your brilliance away." There's another pause, John's fingers stilling against his. "I always figured you'd deduced most of it anyway. I knew you knew, but that didn't mean I could _tell _you about it."

When Sherlock has gotten his wits back about him, he will inform John, in no uncertain terms, how ridiculous that is. John _is _ordinary, so placidly average, in this way and that, but in so many others he is not. Sherlock walked off his roof for him, and he thinks that he could be in any way- _boring? _

That's what he wants to say, but what comes out instead, is, "Mycroft is more extraordinary than I am, and I can barely stand to be in the same room as him. What on earth made you think I wanted more of that?"

Which really isn't what he meant to say- no, _no, _that was stupid, he's trying to make this better, not insult John- and how did _Mycroft _ever get brought up, stupid, stupid, _stupid Sherlock- _but John just snorts and gives him a reproachful nudge like it's fine. It's _fine_. "I didn't say it was logical. You forget, most of us don't run all our thoughts through a logical test before running with it. I think that's one of the reasons you call us all idiots."

It is. Was. It was.

Sherlock hardly feels so logical himself nowadays- which is likely the problem.

He doesn't know how to work when his mind continues to insist upon being so inherently, stupidly _illogical._

John's hand slips a few moments later, returning back to his lap, and his smile slips with it. "Or I guess I should- ah. Sorry." He scratches the back of his head, looking almost abashed. "I know you're not... maybe you don't care, I don't know. But you're not a machine, Sherlock, much as you might like to be one. That's part of what got us into this mess in the first place."

Sherlock rolls his eyes, but John's not done, not giving him the time to so much as try to interrupt. "It's been obvious something was wrong with you for a while, it was even obvious _what _was wrong, but I kept ignoring it, because it was _you. _Nothing could be wrong with you, you're- well, you're bloody Sherlock," he laughs, as if _Sherlock _is an abstract or far-away concept like those stars he likes so much, and not- whatever he is. "I just kept assuming it was me, that I was doing something wrong. I kept making you talk about it when you clearly needed a break, I kept assuming that you were fine, because I'd never known you to be anything _but _fine, and... I guess I somehow forgot that as amazing as you are, you're still as human as they come. I called you a machine once before and it was the stupidest thing I've ever said to you and... and I'm sorry that I somehow managed to forget that it wasn't true again, Sherlock."

Sherlock stares back. He doesn't quite understand, which is a detestable feeling, and one that is growing detestably common. He doesn't know why John is apologising, but experience tends to suggest that John apologies _for _Sherlock, not _to _him- what's he supposed to say? What is he expected to do back?

"It's fine," he settles on, after a moment, and John's smile is so disarming back it feels like he's swallowed something liquifying and hot.

"It's really not, actually, but. I'll take it." He pats at Sherlock's hand. "We'll work on it."

The quiet of middle of the night London spreads on between them again. Sherlock, still freezing, is becoming more and more acutely aware of how ridiculous it has to seem, running off to hide on a rooftop all day, and for the first time, his face warms with a hint of humiliation underneath the misery.

_God_, what a day.

"I'm truly not suicidal," he points out, because the topic of the conversation does seem to suggest its necessity. "I really do just like rooftops."

John flinches again, though Sherlock had seen that one coming. "I... know," he rasps, and it comes out just a little too thick to be tolerable.

Because of him.

It's his fault.

Again.

Sherlock, in the way he has never stopped being since he's come back, in the way that has never ceased since he'd gotten John's very first text message alone on the floor of a warehouse in Germany, is sorry. For the first time in his life, he is so, so sorry, and he would give anything and everything that he has in a heartbeat to make this right.

But, John-

John, instead of asking him to give something, offers his own hand, instead.

'For now, though?" he suggests, the words careful through an even more carefully fragile smile. "Maybe try to stop living life so on the edge, and instead take it easy for a little while?"

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "I was under the impression you were so enamored precisely because my entire existence is, as you say it, _on the edge_."

But it's too difficult to smile, and his voice wavers, just a little, at the end; it's _criminal, _the way it betrays him like that, and it's abrupt and pathetic but suddenly he just wants to bury himself into John's shoulder and let John pet his hair and kiss him and- _take care _of him.

He wants to be _taken care of, _now. Good god, what on earth has become of him?

He can't do any of those things, of course. Luckily, for his pride, his sanity. But there's still a lump in his throat and a deep hollow in his chest that needs filling, so he does the next best thing, instead.

He takes John's hand, and allows himself to be pulled up off the ledge.

"Sherlock?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't take this the wrong way. I know you're really not suicidal."

"...John, I am _not _going to see a thera-"

"If I ever see you on a rooftop ledge again, I am going to punch your lights out."

Sherlock blinks.

And then, as John leads him off the roof, side by side and hand on his shoulder and stressed and exhausted and with months of unhappiness still sleeping behind and between them, Sherlock laughs.

He walks.

This time, he walks with John, and this time, he walks home.

* * *

John, as ever, is a very good doctor.

There's fussing and bustling, a chiding to change out of his cold, dirtied clothes right now and wait just a moment, so John can get some hot tea into him, and then a hot shower. Sherlock isn't remotely hypothermic, to the point that the professional, medical urgency is almost funny, but he lets John fuss anyway.

In the morning, he's sure it will have passed, but at the moment, being taken care of isn't as repulsive as it should be.

It's as he's passing aimlessly through to the kitchen, John's insisted upon blanket loose around his shoulders and his frosted hands just beginning to thaw, that his gaze lands on his violin.

Something stirs in his chest.

While the kettle boils, Sherlock tunes.

His fingers are still half-frozen, and flexing them a few times only makes them sting as the blood reluctantly gets to flowing again. It takes a few false starts for them to move quickly enough, vibrato and uneven trills until he gets the circulation back, and John's eyes are on his back and silent when he finally begins the first scale.

That's all it is. A simple, three octave major scale, from frog to tip and back again: nothing more demanding than would be expected of a simple primary school orchestra student.

When the kettle boils, Sherlock moves up a fifth, and starts again.

It's not perfect. It's not fantastic or lovely. There is room for critique, and once or twice, Sherlock has to shake his head and start again, stretching his fingers that want to cramp and shiver and slink out of practice. He knows every note perfectly, of course and he's relearned exactly where they all are, but it's the relearning of the fundamentals that matters, something that there is no shortcut for and takes nothing but discipline, patience, and time.

Something he has tried to brute force his way passed until now, and today, his nose stuffy and his face flushed and his eyes still sore, he has to finally admit: he's failed at it.

Time to start again.

Maybe it's the cold, maybe it's the day sitting wedged into the corner of St. Bart's roof, but his shoulder starts aching five minutes before the usual, and his left hand is shaking when it's been just long enough that his tea will be starting to cool.

He breathes in deeply once, and stops.

Mrs. Hudson is still downstairs.

"That was... nice."

"It was a scale, John, not a Mozart concerto. And no, it really wasn't."

"And I just said it was _nice; _I didn't throw a bouquet of flowers up onto stage and demand an encore. You've never been modest in your life, Sherlock, don't start now." John smirks, watching him, and Sherlock turns his back under the pretense of settling his violin back into the case. "I haven't heard you play since you got back."

"Yessss?"

"Just... making an observation, I suppose." He pauses, taking another sip of tea with a clink of china. "You should do it more. I've missed it. And you look like you have, too."

_I've missed it, _John says.

And somehow, underneath it, Sherlock hears, _I've missed you._

"...Hmm."

John doesn't say anything else, the weight of his gaze warm and steady on his back, and Sherlock loosens the bow and wipes the strings down in silence. There's a spot on the wood, repainted expertly but the hue difference is there, and Sherlock touches it, just for a moment, with one aching finger.

Not the same as before. _Never_ the same as before.

That horrid, loathsome word... _damaged. _

There was perhaps a difference, though, between not the same as before, and not as _good _as before.

Sherlock offers his violin a smile, patting the case closed, and returns to the sofa, tea, and John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! As always, feedback is always welcome and appreciated! Hope to see you next time! <3


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